Was this article plagiarized? GOOGLE IT!

First of all, no; this article was not plagiarized.
Referring to the first article:
Sidenote: what exactly is a PRE-journalism student? You learn to theoretically maybe one day write something? Anyway... a columnist stole quotes from a PRE-journalism student's article for a school paper. First of all... what was this reporter thinking? Stealing from a student of all people? But nonetheless, if you don't get the quote, you can't act like you did. That's called logic. This guy lost his column after the incident -- which on one side is a shame because I'm sure he was a fine writer. And on the other side shows that an entire house of cards can fall in the matter of writing one sentence. (Oh God how I hope nobody ever wrote that before.)
According to the school, "Two issues are at stake: Whether the use of uncredited quotes is plagiarism, and whether the punishment -- public disclosure and cancellation of the column -- fit the transgression, a transgression Merrill called 'unintentional plagiarism.'" (see how I quoted that?)
So... 1- Can a reporter use another source's quotes without citing them? And 2- If someone who makes that mistake should get fired. First of all, I think that the simple "according to..." could have fixed this whole thing. I think as long as you attribute those quotes to where you found them, no problem. And no I definitely don't think a good writer should have lost his job over it, but punishment or probation was probably in order.
After all, isn't all news copied from another source anyway? "Hey I think I read that in the NY Times..." Yes. You probably did.

Referring to the second article:
"Careless" is questionable. Was John Merrill "careless" in forgetting to put the source of his quotes? Or did he simply just not say the source of his quotes? If he really did forget to tag that on to the sentence, then two things happened. Firstly, he wrote it in a hurry. Secondly, he never checked it over at all. Because any good reporter knows that you check your facts. However, the latter option is more logical to me. He knew that his "source" was an 18-year-old girl, and to attribute that would make him look bad. My solution: don't use the quotes. If you know they're not yours and you're not admitting your source, leave them out. It;s better to have an incomplete article than to lose your job.
In his defense, he is right in saying that the whole fiasco made him look bad. It did. Also, I agree with the "technical, not unethical" spin he puts to it. Though he clearly just wants his job back, this is a good point. He never meant to steal anyone else's words. He just made a technical error.
I must say, though, I cannot wait for his "book on plagiarism." It'll probably be great... if he writes any of it himself. (HEY OHH!)

Referring to the third article:
There are sure a lot of places to find politics information. How much does someone want to throw down that they all say the same thing????
p.s. one of them is called "Whack-a-Pol" -- HA!

Huckabee, Texas Ranger

So a commercial has recently been released about Mike Huckabee’s campaign.
What’s new with it? Well, total turn around. Chuck Norris is now endorsing
Huckabee! (?) Wow, um, lucky him? I don’t understand how this will help
anyone in any way. But in a Newsweek article, they seemed pretty pumped.
Apparently, not only is Huckabee in good shape now, he took the lead in
Iowa polls because of his new endorser. Wow, so that “18-22 year-old
college frat guy” demographic is way more important than we all thought, I
guess.
Not only is it in Newsweek, but it also shows up on the Newsweek Website -- complete with video. The story showed up on FOX news -- that video linked to from time.com. Why was this story so pervasive when there were clearly better things to talk about? And why were there no writers commenting on how ridiculous the entire endorsement system was?
Simple: Because news isn't interested in context or analysis. They simple reported on what they saw. And what they saw was hilarious.
The commercial itself seemed way more serious – but to the trained eye,
hilarious. “The ad opens with Huckabee deadpanning: ‘My plan to secure the
border? Two words: Chuck Norris.’” GENIUS, Mike Huckabee. Let’s put one
guy who hasn’t had a job in 2 years (okay, it was really more like 6
years, but I’ll go ahead and count in Texas Ranger movie for his benefit)
in charge of a major national issue. I’ll just ignore the fact that you
have no real plan for immigration, because Chuck Norris is just so
fantastic.
Putting aside the fact that this is a sub-Oprah endorsement, let’s look at
what Chuck Norris could do for Huckabee. Well first of all that’s not even
his real name. It’s Carlos. He is in the martial arts, not politics. But
wait, he has also given insane amounts of money to the Republican Party
and shown up on the FOX news network. He only gained popularity (again)
after some internet-crazy blogger published “Norris facts” aka random
information someone made up to prove that Chuck Norris is tough. Other
than being a judge in the movie Dodgeball, he has been a martial arts
actor since the 60s. Fun fact: he is SO OLD (67). Another fun fact: the
Newsweek article compares Norris to George Washington.
So, the question is, why with the help of a martial arts actor is Huckabee
doing so well? “Norris has emerged as a dream celebrity "get" on the
Republican side” WHAT? Dream celebrity? Don’t you have to be a celebrity
to be a dream celebrity?
But the article calls this a “political triple play” … why? Because on the
campaign trail any endorser is a good one. So what if he is now reaching
the Youtube 18-22 generation? At least he has that. And yet, for some
reason older people like him too for random things he has apparently done
(like advocate Bible study in schools and his 60s movie days).
So, as one that sees things with a critical eye, why am I the only "reporter" to look at this issue and see the bigger picture: celebrity endorsers only help campaigns if they make the news. And this one made the news. In the long run, will the Norris endorsement aid Huckabee's campaign enough to win? Of course not.

Feminist.... Obama?

In an article in the NY Times, it was noted that Obama thinks that, in terms of feminism, Hillary may not be the best bet. He thinks that, being raised by a single mother, he understands the problems of women and is committed to issues that affect them - "Because I know what it’s like to be raised by a single mom who’s trying to work and go to school and raise two kids at the same time, doesn’t have any support from the father. These are issues I’m passionate about.” It isn't just passion, though. It's also sheer political intelligence. Obama knows that getting the "woman vote" is very important, especially in the Democratic Party.

Hillary Clinton, however, has gotten a huge following among women. Many voters were pushed toward Hillary for the mere fact that she could be the first female president, but Obama's platform may look better for women voters. It's the same thing, though, with many ethnic minorities wanting to back Obama because he would be the first black president. The main difference is that this is not Obama's platform, but for Hillary, the gender card is. Either way, though, it isn't enough to vote for someone because of things they can't control as a general rule. Their history and ideas are what people should vote based off of, but many uneducated Americans are going to either ignore or not even look at the candidates' experience when they vote. Women may just vote for the woman because they think that naturally they will be represented. This isn't always true. Some of Hillary's platforms go against what most women and feminist voters would want.
Obama said that the candidate's gender shouldn't make a difference anyway, good or bad for him. There are many out there who agree, saying that sex alone cannot legitimize a campaign and it is acceptable for women, or feminist, voters to follow a male candidate. It's the same thing with Barack, though, with black voters. It's okay for them to want a white candidate and vice versa. His "black-ness" doesn't mean that black voters want him as their president, just as not all women like Hillary Clinton.
I think all in all, though, Obama's campaign has been the smartest of them all, winning over all of the main voting groups along with showing that he is not playing the "Washington game" that other candidates take pride in. For that reason, he has gotten a lot of slack from politicians and journalists in the field, but those aren't really the people who matter in this case. He has gotten a lot of positive feedback from voters about his new ideas for D.C. and for that reason he better do well in the polls and in the election. Hillary, though she can win over the woman vote just for being a woman, cannot convince people that she's human as well. At least Obama speaks the same language as voters.

Get to the Poynt

"Photos, Audio and the (Glorious) Struggle to Combine Them." Glorious? Really, Pat Walters? Glorious? See because to me, you're making an old-fashioned mash up. So by all means if you think you're making a remix to the Hallelujia chorus, be my guest, think whatever you want. But you do realize people have been doing this for... ever, right? Okay now that I've read the headline, let's move on to the story.
"...many of the collections created by one program. Soundslides." Again, Pat Walters, way to make this sound like Star Wars. Basically what he's saying is that small newsrooms are leading the way in innovation with audio slideshows. Joe Weiss, the creator of Soundslides, has worked as a photojournalist for over 10 years. The program was apparently inspired by Weiss's work with "The Mountain Workshop." (sidenote: this looks hilarious.) Carrying on, Weiss makes a good point about the value of images with a story. Video and still photographs invoke different responses in viewers and should be carefully treated with regard to news pieces. He also said that there haven't been many news pieces done in audio slideshow format, which I find odd because I feel like that it would translate the best -- especially for lazy newspaper readers who want the images and the story all together in one minute.
Also interesting: "Most of the people [who] are using Soundslides are not online journalists. They're people in print papers who want to see their work online." This I found odd as well because you'd think that people online would have the background and initiative to get this going to begin with. Weiss made a good point about the readers' perspective of the slideshow, too, saying that journalists should value the attention that the viewer is giving you, and to make sure that you are making the best out of it that you can. It's important to keep in mind what images they would want to see, not just shoot the best one still photograph that print papers would use. And keep in mind the time aspect, because too long of a show will lose readers altogether.
Another sidenote: this article has an obscene amount of typos and spelling errors.