Asked But Not Answered

Rocky Mountain News editor and publisher John Temple called today to let us know about an item he’d just posted to his blog. In it, Temple concedes that at least two passages in a four-paragraph editorial published by the News July 16 violate one of the most basic principles of journalism — the prohibition against using another writer’s work without attribution.

As first pointed out by Lisa Jones’ RockyWatch, the passages in question appear to have been lifted from a rant posted three days earlier on the Daily Howler, a popular poltical blog.

But though Temple headlined his blog item “Answering questions about an editorial,” many of our questions remain unanswered. Indeed, Temple’s 905-word defense of his paper’s 255-word editorial raises all sorts of new questions.

We’ll continue working on getting our questions answered and publish our findings in the September issue of 5280.