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Plagiarism

Plagiarism in Journalism

What is plagiarism in journalism? Learn more about the consequences of plagiarism, discover famous cases, and read an analysis of technology's impact on journalism today

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Introduction

Our text compare tool is a fantastic, lightweight tool that provides plagiarism checks between two documents. Whether you are a student, blogger or publisher, this tool offers a great solution to detect and compare similarities between any two pieces of text. In this article, I will discuss the different ways to use the tool, the primary features of the tool and who this tool is for. There is an FAQ at the bottom if you run into any issues when trying to use the tool.

What makes Originality.ai’s text comparison tool stand out?

Keyword density helper – This tool comes with a built-in keyword density helper in some ways similar to the likes of SurferSEO or MarketMuse the difference being, ours is free! This feature shows the user the frequency of single or two word keywords in a document, meaning you can easily compare an article you have written against a competitor to see the major differences in keyword densities. This is especially useful for SEO’s who are looking to optimize their blog content for search engines and improve the blog’s visibility.

Ways to compare

File compare – Text comparison between files is a breeze with our tool. Simply select the files you would like to compare, hit “Upload” and our tool will automatically insert the content into the text area, then simply hit “Compare” and let our tool show you where the differences in the text are. By uploading a file, you can still check the keyword density in your content.

URL compare

Comparing text between URLs is effortless with our tool. Simply paste the URL you would like to get the content from (in our example we use a fantastic blog post by Sherice Jacob found here) hit “Submit URL” and our tool will automatically retrieve the contents of the page and paste it into the text area, then simply click “Compare” and let our tool highlight the difference between the URLs. This feature is especially useful for checking keyword density between pages!

Simple text compare

You can also easily compare text by copying and pasting it into each field, as demonstrated below.

Features of Originality.ai’s Text Compare Tool

Ease of use

Our text compare tool is created with the user in mind, it is designed to be accessible to everyone. Our tool allows users to upload files or enter a URL to extract text, this along with the lightweight design ensures a seamless experience. The interface is simple and straightforward, making it easy for users to compare text and detect the diff.

Multiple text file format support

Our tool provides support for a variety of different text files and microsoft word formats including pdf file, .docx, .odt, .doc, and .txt, giving users the ability to compare text from different sources with ease. This makes it a great solution for students, bloggers, and publishers who are looking for file comparison in different formats.

Protects intellectual property

Our text comparison tool helps you protect your intellectual property and helps prevent plagiarism. This tool provides an accurate comparison of texts, making it easy to ensure that your work is original and not copied from other sources. Our tool is a valuable resource for anyone looking to maintain the originality of their content.

User Data Privacy

Our text compare tool is secure and protects user data privacy. No data is ever saved to the tool, the users’ text is only scanned and pasted into the tool’s text area. This makes certain that users can use our tool with confidence, knowing their data is safe and secure.

Compatibility

Our text comparison tool is designed to work seamlessly across all size devices, ensuring maximum compatibility no matter your screen size. Whether you are using a large desktop monitor, a small laptop, a tablet or a smartphone, this tool adjusts to your screen size. This means that users can compare texts and detect the diff anywhere without the need for specialized hardware or software. This level of accessibility makes it an ideal solution for students or bloggers who value the originality of their work and need to compare text online anywhere at any time.

Similar to other industries and fields, plagiarism in journalism is a serious problem that undermines the credibility and integrity of the media. The media is at the center of informing the public, so trust between journalists and their audience is crucial. 

When plagiarism occurs, it breaches this trust, creating far-reaching consequences. Plagiarism impacts the affected journalist, the organization as a whole, and the entire umbrella of organizations that fall under the term ‘media.’

In this article, we’ll take a closer look at plagiarism in journalism: what it means, what the consequences are, and some famous cases. Then, we’ll analyze how technology affects journalism today and what can be done to help rebuild media credibility. 

What Exactly is Plagiarism in Journalism?

The typical definition of plagiarism involves using someone else’s work or ideas without properly giving them credit. It could be as simple as copying and pasting or it could mean failing to credit the original author (of a quote, for example). 

Given that journalism and news cycles in general are so fast-paced, it’s easy to see how a journalist could, under pressure, be tempted to take someone else’s words or ideas and claim them as their own. 

However, plagiarism in journalism carries severe repercussions. Plagiarism has led to entire careers crumbling, tarnished media reputations, and an erosion of public trust to the point where many people believe the media simply cannot be trusted. 

What can journalists do to fight back against plagiarism and restore that trust? That’s just one of the many things we’ll be looking at in this article. 

Famous Cases of Plagiarism in Journalism

One of the more (in)famous cases of plagiarism in journalism involved Jayson Blair in 2003. That year, it was discovered that he had plagiarized and fabricated parts of his stories over several years. This blew up as a huge scandal for The New York Times. Jayson resigned, The New York Times publicly apologized, and several of the paper’s top editors resigned. 

Yet, newspapers aren’t the only ones affected by plagiarism. In 2012, Fareed Zakaria of CNN and Time Magazine was found to have plagiarized a paragraph from The New Yorker in one of his columns. He apologized and, after a review, was reinstated. Still, just like in the case of Jayson Blair, the incident raised many questions about journalism, ethics, and editorial oversight. 

These cases and many more like them underscore the pressures that journalists face with the constant demand for attention-grabbing, quality content. But when journalists are caught plagiarizing, it’s not just the person themselves who is punished. Their actions have a ripple effect throughout the media as a whole, and that trust, once eroded, is hard to recover. 

How Has Plagiarism Impacted the Media?

For the journalist, plagiarism can be a career-ender. Then, plagiarism also seeps out to affect editors and everyone else higher in the hierarchy — whose job it is to uncover these cases. It erodes the journalist’s credibility and that of the organization as a whole. 

As these issues continue, the public becomes more skeptical, cynical, and distrustful. So when there’s a real ‘boy cries wolf’ scenario, the media’s warnings are highly likely to be disregarded. 

This is to say nothing of the financial repercussions the organization itself may face in light of plagiarism accusations. There may be significant legal fees and other hurdles that, depending on the level of plagiarism or the type of plagiarism, may be significant. All of this reflects poorly on the journalist, the organization, and the industry as a whole. 

What Are the Legal Consequences of Plagiarism for Journalists and News Organizations?

Depending on the type of plagiarism and its severity, there may be more than just legal consequences. Copyright infringement is one of many common charges as are defamation, breach of contract, and liability. Journalists found to have plagiarized are likely to lose any subsequent career opportunities in the field. It may even result in lawsuits with court costs and settlement fees that need to be paid. 

How Is Technology Changing Plagiarism Detection in Journalism?

Technology, particularly AI, has had a seismic effect on journalism and plagiarism. AI (artificial intelligence) has sped up the content creation process, nearly automating the time-consuming task of researching and gathering information. 

At the same time, technology has also increased the public’s voracious appetite for information. It’s no longer enough for news organizations to be ‘always on.’ They must also constantly produce and create content, while looking for any shred of news to examine, magnify, and discuss. 

However, AI is a double-edged sword. With the ease of creating content, there is also the challenge of distinguishing fact from fiction. AI is notorious for producing ‘hallucinations’ or made-up ‘facts’ it presents as reality. Considering that AI pulls from so many sources and extensive training data, it doesn’t always have the capacity to distinguish its statements as true or false. 

This is one of the many reasons why Originality.ai created an automated fact-checker. This thorough real-time fact-checking tool looks for sources to back up statements, adding proof and credibility. Keep in mind, however, that no AI is perfect and there are times, especially with highly technical statements, that AI still makes mistakes. Just like humans, it’s always learning.

How to Avoid Plagiarism in Journalism

The biggest step in avoiding plagiarism in journalism is knowing what plagiarism is. It’s not just ‘copying text verbatim.’ Taking someone else’s statement and changing a word here or there, making up sources or quotes — all of these constitute plagiarism to different degrees. 

There is no such thing as asking, “How many words can I use until something is considered plagiarism?” If you have to ask, don’t do it. 

As well as knowing what plagiarism is, it also helps to take detailed notes. Then, always acknowledge your sources and give credit where it’s due (including to yourself!). 

Foster a culture of ethics and integrity in the workplace. Seek out feedback from others to get new ideas or angles on a piece you’re working on. Given the breakneck pace of journalism, these can sound like a tall order to fill. However, taking steps to maintain integrity now will help you avoid repercussions later. 

Next Steps: Getting Started With Originality.ai

Just as technology made it easier for journalists to create compelling copy, it can also help journalists to prevent plagiarism or spot it in their writing. Tools like Originality.ai’s plagiarism checker scour online databases to find sources and flag potentially plagiarized text. 

Originality.ai goes well beyond even the most well-known online plagiarism detectors. Using sophisticated AI and machine learning algorithms, Originality.ai can also detect AI writing with a high degree of accuracy. It can detect AI-generated text from popular AI generators like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Claude, and more. 

If you’re concerned about AI ‘hallucinations’ making it into your facts or statistics, it’s also a good idea to consider using Originality.ai’s real-time fact checker. When submitting a document through Originality.ai, you can choose each check respectively (plagiarism, fact-checking, and AI writing). Alternatively, you can opt for the tool to review them all at once. 

Then, Originality.ai displays a comprehensive report on the completion of the scan so that you can check the flagged passages carefully and make an informed decision.

Sherice Jacob

Sherice Jacob is a seasoned copywriter and content professional fluent in English, Spanish, and Catalan, with over 25 years of experience crafting high-converting copy. Passionate about AI, she enjoys exploring the new innovations and possibilities it brings to the world of content creation.

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In The Press

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Originality.ai did a fantastic job on all three prompts, precisely detecting them as AI-written. Additionally, after I checked with actual human-written textual content, it did determine it as 100% human-generated, which is important.

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I use this tool most frequently to check for AI content personally. My most frequent use-case is checking content submitted by freelance writers we work with for AI and plagiarism.

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Jon Gillham, Founder of Originality.ai came up with a tool to detect whether the content is written by humans or AI tools. It’s built on such technology that can specifically detect content by ChatGPT-3 — by giving you a spam score of 0-100, with an accuracy of 94%.

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ChatGPT lacks empathy and originality. It’s also recognized as AI-generated content most of the time by plagiarism and AI detectors like Originality.ai

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For web publishers, Originality.ai will enable you to scan your content seamlessly, see who has checked it previously, and detect if an AI-powered tool was implored.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Why is it important to check for plagiarism?

Tools for conducting a plagiarism check between two documents online are important as it helps to ensure the originality and authenticity of written work. Plagiarism undermines the value of professional and educational institutions, as well as the integrity of the authors who write articles. By checking for plagiarism, you can ensure the work that you produce is original or properly attributed to the original author. This helps prevent the distribution of copied and misrepresented information.

What is Text Comparison?

Text comparison is the process of taking two or more pieces of text and comparing them to see if there are any similarities, differences and/or plagiarism. The objective of a text comparison is to see if one of the texts has been copied or paraphrased from another text. This text compare tool for plagiarism check between two documents has been built to help you streamline that process by finding the discrepancies with ease.

How do Text Comparison Tools Work?

Text comparison tools work by analyzing and comparing the contents of two or more text documents to find similarities and differences between them. This is typically done by breaking the texts down into smaller units such as sentences or phrases, and then calculating a similarity score based on the number of identical or nearly identical units. The comparison may be based on the exact wording of the text, or it may take into account synonyms and other variations in language. The results of the comparison are usually presented in the form of a report or visual representation, highlighting the similarities and differences between the texts.

String comparison is a fundamental operation in text comparison tools that involves comparing two sequences of characters to determine if they are identical or not. This comparison can be done at the character level or at a higher level, such as the word or sentence level.

The most basic form of string comparison is the equality test, where the two strings are compared character by character and a Boolean result indicating whether they are equal or not is returned. More sophisticated string comparison algorithms use heuristics and statistical models to determine the similarity between two strings, even if they are not exactly the same. These algorithms often use techniques such as edit distance, which measures the minimum number of operations (such as insertions, deletions, and substitutions) required to transform one string into another.

Another common technique for string comparison is n-gram analysis, where the strings are divided into overlapping sequences of characters (n-grams) and the frequency of each n-gram is compared between the two strings. This allows for a more nuanced comparison that takes into account partial similarities, rather than just exact matches.

String comparison is a crucial component of text comparison tools, as it forms the basis for determining the similarities and differences between texts. The results of the string comparison can then be used to generate a report or visual representation of the similarities and differences between the texts.

What is Syntax Highlighting?

Syntax highlighting is a feature of text editors and integrated development environments (IDEs) that helps to visually distinguish different elements of a code or markup language. It does this by coloring different elements of the code, such as keywords, variables, functions, and operators, based on a predefined set of rules.

The purpose of syntax highlighting is to make the code easier to read and understand, by drawing attention to the different elements and their structure. For example, keywords may be colored in a different hue to emphasize their importance, while comments or strings may be colored differently to distinguish them from the code itself. This helps to make the code more readable, reducing the cognitive load of the reader and making it easier to identify potential syntax errors.

How Can I Conduct a Plagiarism Check between Two Documents Online?

With our tool it’s easy, just enter or upload some text, click on the button “Compare text” and the tool will automatically display the diff between the two texts.

What Are the Benefits of Using a Text Compare Tool?

Using text comparison tools is much easier, more efficient, and more reliable than proofreading a piece of text by hand. Eliminate the risk of human error by using a tool to detect and display the text difference within seconds.

What Files Can You Inspect with This Text Compare Tool?

We have support for the file extensions .pdf, .docx, .odt, .doc and .txt. You can also enter your text or copy and paste text to compare.

Will My Data Be Shared?

There is never any data saved by the tool, when you hit “Upload” we are just scanning the text and pasting it into our text area so with our text compare tool, no data ever enters our servers.

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