Poe's Law Disclaimer: FBC Jax Watchdog occasionally posts satire articles. You will know it is satire when I refer to "Watchdog Press" in the dateline and article....otherwise, the posts might SEEM like satire - as many of my stories are unbelievable - but they will be truthful.
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Don't get me wrong, I'm flattered that Gerald Harris, editor of the Georgia Baptists' news journal "Christian Index", considers the FBC Jax Watchdog blog worthy of quoting. But Harris should at least give credit when he uses my original expressions. On September 7th, Gerald Harris published "Homer Gentry Lindsay, Jr - Soul-Winning Pastor" as a part of a series of "great men of God" Harris has known. Harris used my own article on Homer Lindsay from 2010 as a source of his information, but he was extremely careless in his use of my original expressions - not giving me credit for direct quotes, and using several sentences with just a slight re-wording and then presenting them as his own original thoughts.
Even when Harris did use quotations on a portion of my article, he didn't do it accurately - adding a sentence I did not say within quotations to change the overall meaning and intent of my paragraph. That is terrible. He really should correct this if he has any journalistic integrity.
Keep in mind, Harris is not just some obscure blogger, and not just some country bumpkin backwoods Georgia preacher. According to his Christian Index biography, he is the author of three books, holds a Master's degree from Southwest Baptist Theological Seminary, has published articles for Christian magazines and has served as the Georgia state convention president. Oh, and he has a doctor of ministry degree from Luther Rice seminary.
I must say I'm not surprised that Harris would do this - Harris blew much of his credibility when he was a staunch supporter of Ergun Caner for president of Georgia Baptist's college, Brewton Parker, back in 2014. As I wrote about here, Harris described Caner during a church service - after all the allegations were out about Caner's decade of deceit - as "..one of the finest preachers in all of America..." and "...one of the foremost preachers in America...". Harris then went on to encourage the church members to bring all of their children to come and hear Caner.
And Mr. Harris, you will see in my 2014 article when I quoted you, I did it accurately. I transcribed your exact words, and gave you full credit for them.
Below are the comparisons:
Notice above he does refer to "one writer"...but doesn't say who. Probably Harris doesn't want his fellow Georgia Baptists to know he is using the hated FBC Jax Watchdog as a source. Here is the FBC Jax Watchdog article excerpt:
Later in the article, Harris refers to "One blogger" - yours truly - and says this:
Here is the paragraph from the FBC Jax Watchdog article Harris is using:
Now the somewhat humorous part of this: Harris included an interview with Jerry Vines about his co-pastor of 15 years, Homer Lindsay. It is somewhat ironic that Harris used my article about Homer, when the purpose of my article was not just to discuss the attributes of Homer Lindsay but to contrast them to Homer Lindsay's successors, like Jerry Vines, whom Harris used as another source of his article.
Maybe Peter Lumpkins can contact Gerald Harris and teach him how to properly cite others' work, and how to avoid plagiarism.
6 comments:
Update: Mr. Harris has emailed me to apologize, committed to fixing the problem. The only problem is that his fix was to remove the offending parts, and not give an explanation or apology on the amended article. Problem is, several other sites have already published the original article.
If Mr. Harris has journalistic integrity, he will publish an apology and explanation along with the amended article on the website.
You know, Watchdog, there are many notable folks whose entire works are just compilations of other peoples thoughts, claiming them as their own.
I'm an avid reader, and can spot shades of other authors in certain books. To me, that's nothing more than theft.
I won't tell you to be flattered by his plagiarism. I will tell you that you have every right to be pissed.
For what it's worth, I think you are a brilliant writer and enjoy your work. :)
You are coming up in the world, friend. Plagiarism is the sincerest form of a compliment. Keep at it!
Dee said it! And I fully agree.
But the plagiarizer should do a proper correction of the record, as should every place that repeated his article under their own banner.
You're a douche bag
Thank you, kind sir! You must be one of dem "men o' Gawd"....
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