I suppose that all of us have embellished our lives at some time to some extent, but, if you are a celebrity, it can have severe consequences when found out. The latest to fall prey to this is Brian Williams who is the anchor and managing editor of NBC nightly news, now suspended without pay for six months for embellishing his memories of a helicopter flight in Vietnam during the war.* The problem isn't that he said this once, it is that he has repeatedly said it. And now there are questions about his exploits in Hurricane Katrina, and Israel's war with Hezbollah and even his account of being held at gun point in his youth. Brian Williams is hardly alone on this problem and I'll give three famous examples.
Consider Vice-President Joe Biden . His run for the Democratic Presidential nominee became unraveled when it was revealed that he had plagiarized 5 of the 15 page report: A few days later, Biden's plagiarism incident in law school came to public light.[26] Video was also released showing that when earlier questioned by a New Hampshire resident about his grades in law school, Biden had stated that he had graduated in the "top half" of his class, that he had attended law school on a full scholarship, and that he had received three degrees in college,[25][78] each of which were untrue or exaggerations of his actual record.[25] ** He did graduate from the University of Delaware with one degree in a double major of history and political science, and he did get a law degree from Syracuse University where he apparently had his expenses covered in various ways but had only a half time scholarship rather than a full scholarship. But reality was not enough.
Then there is Mike Barnicle who had a 25 yr career with the Boston Globe ended by an accusation of plagiarism over some jokes from a 1977 book by John Carin called "Brain Droppings." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Barnicle). I am happy to say that he has made a nice recovery, and I often see him on Morning Joe.
Lastly , let's look at Doris Kearns Goodwin, a Pulitzer Prize winning political historian, accused of lifting passages from three other books without quotation marks though she did cite the sources.*** Nonetheless, she lost her position on the PBS NewsHour. She too is making a nice comeback.
I do have questions, however, about "big business' writers who have researchers and other helpers who sometimes even do part or all of the writing and are lucky if they get an acknowledgement. Not surprisingly, the CEO, author, of this group can "write" many books compared to those who do it all themselves. But I have written elsewhere on this sort of thing and will not repeat it other than to say that movies give the best recognition, and I think the automobile companies give none at all except for the patron (the company name):.**** Also, I was surprised in finding two cases where authors were sued for plagiarizing themselves (!) because it is the publisher who holds the copyright of published papers and not the author.
* For a sympathetic account of these questions, see" http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/02/10/brian-williams-rescue-plan-crumbles-as-friends-plead-for-mercy/.
**http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Biden
*** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doris_Kearns_Goodwin
**** http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2011/06/credit.html
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