Spartan Edge Investigation Shows Holes in ING's Editorial System

lNG MAGAZINE RUNS STORY ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN SPARTAN EDGE

Spartan Edge staff

An MSU magazine ran a story from Spartan Edge last week, and the publisher is denying any wrongdoing in reprinting the pictures and story word for word.

Adam Grant, who publishes ING Magazine, effectively violated copyright laws and breached MSU’s student policy.
Grant reprinted an article on drinking games written by Nick Mordowanec in the Oct. 29 issue of the Edge, except it didn't print the first paragraph that related it to another Edge story on drinking game hazards.

In addition, Grant did not give credit to the Edge for the story, and he printed another person’s name atop the story instead of Mordowanec’s: Renee Farah, the ING style editor.

Grant said in an email to Edge Editor Amanda Peterka that he did nothing wrong, and that the errors were careless mistakes.

“The byline on Nick's story was incorrect due to a design error,” said Grant, an MSU business graduate. “Nick is, of course, aware of this error and we are handling that issue internally.”

Grant did not elaborate nor provide details on what “internally” means.

Beneath every story on the website for the Edge, an independent weekly online publication, appears this copyright statement: “All material copyright SpartanEdge.com LLC.” Reprinting copyrighted material without attribution is illegal.

Yet Grant stated in his email to Peterka, “I do not believe there was any plagiarism or intentional copyright violations.” However, publishing an already-published story, whether it was intentional, is plagiarism, according to media laws.

When Peterka noticed the reprint in ING, she emailed Grant, asking for acknowledgement of the error and an apology to the Edge in the magazine’s next issue. She also retracted her permission for Grant to reprint an Edge story about the highest-paid MSU employees. "I am recalling my permission for you to use the Spartan Edge story,” Peterka wrote, “and you do not have permission to use any more Spartan Edge stories in ING Magazine."

Grant, however, responded: "I am grateful for your help and generosity with allowing us to use the article on the highest paid people at MSU and hope that we can work toward a positive relationship between ING magazine and the Spartan Edge." 

After a couple more emails, he agreed to publish a correction in February’s issue of ING and to withdraw all Edge stories from the magazine.

Grant stated, “Please be assured that we did not intend to use anyone's work without permission, and I will do whatever I can to prevent similar incidents in the future.”

All students learn to do this in every class they take at MSU. The Office of the Ombudsman states that “At MSU…no student shall claim or submit the academic work of another as one’s own.”

Grant’s own college of business teaches this same lesson: “Plagiarism includes appropriating another person’s ideas or work without giving him or her credit or using information from the Internet, books, or magazines without citing the source.”

So how did this happen at ING magazine? The Edge decided to do some digging.

Mordowanec and the photographer, Christa Milster, submitted their work to ING magazine at around the same time they submitted it to the Edge. Yet the Edge published the story and photos months ago, copyrighting it. When Grant decided to use the material for his January issue, he did not tell Mordowanec nor Milster.

“I had no clue ING and Grant did that until I one day received an email from Grant saying the story was mistakenly published in the wrong name, and he apologized,” said Mordowanec, whose Edge story was titled, “Germs Don't Stop People: The Best Drinking Games Around Campus.”

Milster was contacted by Grant, asking for photos to go with the drinking games story. She also stated she did not receive notice that the photos had been used by ING until the magazine was published, and Grant emailed her to apologize for the photos not being credited to her.

“When I received the story from Nick I understood that it was his original piece and was not aware of any preexisting copyrights on the material,” Grant said in his email to Peterka. “If I had known that the article had previously appeared on the Spartan Edge website, of course, I would have reached out to the Spartan Edge. Likewise, I understood the photos to be the photographer's original work and received their permission to use the photos. The writer and photographer both gave me permission to use their items without any indication that it was published elsewhere.”

ING’s former editor, journalism senior Michelle Martin, quit the publication this month as she worried about the editorial process.

“It’s a growing process,” she said, commenting on what she has seen of the work done at ING. “I’m not sure that I’m seeing the growth that should be happening.”

Martin also apologized for the error, explaining that she was not notified of it until after publication of the magazine.

“I felt like something like this was bound to happen,” she said. “We tried to throw a publication together before we really had an editorial staff, and I was worried about mistakes like this.”

Farah, a journalism junior, was credited for the article by a “design error,” according to Grant.

Farah received an email from Grant several weeks before the publication of the January issue of the magazine, notifying her that her byline was accidentally placed on an article that she had not written due to a design error. She was not told which article it was, and she was told the mistake was being dealt with, she told the Edge in an interview.

Farah did not see the article with the misplaced byline until she was called into the office of the director of the School of Journalism, Jane Briggs-Bunting. She explained the situation to Briggs-Bunting, and Grant was notified that a correction and apology were expected in the next issue of ING.

“They don’t take the time to look out for errors and make sure the writers don’t get in trouble for mistakes like this,” Farah said.

ING also published an article written by journalism freshman Jacob Kanclerz for Spartan Weekly without giving credit to that publication.

“I had no problem with it being published, partly because it was more exposure as a writer,” Kanclerz said. “However, I am a strong supporter of our alternative media like Spartan Edge and Spartan Weekly because I feel both provide a lot to readers that they don't get anywhere else and would actually enjoy on a weekly basis. So I am disappointed they made no attempt to credit Spartan Weekly, the original publisher.”

ING has a contract with MSU to distribute copies to dorm mailboxes and offer free copies of the publication to students in stands in various buildings around campus.

The magazine produces 10,000 copies each month and was started with help from the ASMSU Funding Board.

Questions? Comments? Contact Spartan Edge staff at peterkaa@msu.edu

Who are you: 
What's Your Major: 
What would you like to say: