February 14th, 2013
onaissues
Knight Foundation says it was a mistake to pay Jonah Lehrer $20,000 | Poynter.

At a Knight Foundation lunch Tuesday, Jonah Lehrer apologized for plagiarism, fabrication and other ethical lapses in his articles and books. Now the Knight Foundation is apologizing for paying Lehrer $20,000 to speak at that lunch. Knight reveals that it invited Lehrer to speak after he had already lost jobs with The New Yorker and Wired for repeatedly misrepresenting his work as original:

Controversial speakers should have platforms, but Knight Foundation should not have put itself into a position tantamount to rewarding people who have violated the basic tenets of journalism. We regret our mistake. …
The fee was not unusual for a well-known author to address a large conference. But it was simply not something Knight Foundation, given our values, should have paid.

Read more on Poynter. 

6 notes·
News journalism plagiarism ethics
  1. mbolden reblogged this from onaissues and added:
    Knight does such great work supporting the transformation of journalism, but this was an amazing lapse. Lehrer should...
  2. onaissues posted this
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