In Defense of Jim Brady

To begin with, I don’t know of any editor who, absent an inkling, conducts a plagiarism investigation before hiring a writer or assigning a piece…So, if we’re going to take Brady to the woodshed for not knowing his young new writer was a plagiarist, let’s reserve room for the dozens of editors at top newspapers, magazines, and book publishers who’ve repeatedly published the work of accused serial plagiarists…Domenech’s critics have cited his youth and relative lack of experience in their various excoriations, but promoting writers to do work beyond what their age and résumé would recommend isn’t necessarily a bad idea.