Ben Domenech resigns

From the Washington Post:

In the past 24 hours, we learned of allegations that Ben Domenech plagiarized material that appeared under his byline in various publications prior to washingtonpost.com contracting with him to write a blog that launched Tuesday.

An investigation into these allegations was ongoing, and in the interim, Domenech has resigned, effective immediately.

When we hired Domenech, we were not aware of any allegations that he had plagiarized any of his past writings. In any cases where allegations such as these are made, we will continue to investigate those charges thoroughly in order to maintain our journalistic integrity.

Plagiarism is perhaps the most serious offense that a writer can commit or be accused of. Washingtonpost.com will do everything in its power to verify that its news and opinion content is sourced completely and accurately at all times.

We appreciate the speed and thoroughness with which our readers and media outlets surfaced these allegations. Despite the turn this has taken, we believe this event, among other things, testifies to the positive and powerful role that the Internet can play in the the practice of journalism.

We also remain committed to representing a broad spectrum of ideas and ideologies in our Opinions area.

Jim Brady
Executive Editor, washingtonpost.com

Broad spectrum of ideas and ideologies? I don't think having a wingnut blog titled Red America and no liberal blog to add some balance is representing a broad spectrum of ideas and idealogies. I'm sure the search is already on to find another right wing partisan hack to replace Ben Domenech. They'll probably vet the next one much more than they did Domenech so it may take awhile. The sad thing is the only lesson those running the Washington Post will take from this is to make sure they don't hire someone who's a plagiarist. The real lesson should be not to placate those on the extreme right in this country by giving in to their cries of liberal bias. That was what was behind this whole idea of theirs to hire a right wing blogger. It couldn't have been any more obvious when they named the blog Red America.

If the Post wants to have a right wing blog they need to be fair and balance it with a liberal blog. If they insist on just having the views of a small minority in this country represented and not the views of those in the the mainstream then they are just setting themselves up for further embarrassment. The Washington Posts' credibility is at an all time low. It's time for them to get back to being an organization that is respected and places a high value on journalistic integrity. Hiring right wing hacks like Ben Domenech isn't the way to go about doing that.