So, from the statements and tone of Willamette Week's defensive and condescending reply - they are still calling Alison a plagiarist. Arrogant and a very, very bad PR move on their part.

In addition, as a reader and as one of the overwhelming majority that agrees that Willamette Week has been wrong about this accusation, the seriousness of it, and the overall way they have handled it, I am offended. I am offended with their "more righteous than thou" tone, I am offended at their false accusation of Alison. I am also offended at their complete unwillingness to admit to or even recognize that maybe they could have been more professional and courteous about this whole thing from the start to its current state.

So I propose this: Why don't we call in three copyright experts agreed upon by both parties and paid for by both Willamette Week and the Mercury (to help prevent bias) to make an overall decision? Let’s see what neutral third party experts have to say.

Then Willamette Week or the Mercury – the entity that is found to be wrong can publicly apologize, buy the other some beers, and we can end it.

Although in this “dear reader’s” opinion, Willamette Week has already blown it for me. I’ve lost my respect, and thus my trust and interest in them as a publication.

Well, I just sent a rather lengthy letter to the publisher and editor of the WW and CCed Clarke, Waterhouse, Gillingham and a few others.

This situation is inexcusable and the fact that no one will back down from the extremely grave remarks is, in my opinion, atrociously unprofessional. I like the WW, but my respect for them after this incident has pretty much plummeted.

This was a case where two writers took the least creative path possible to expressing similar feelings about the same thing. Each began with a bit of factual background. Each stated the principal players/creators. Each came to more or less the same conclusion about the qualities of this particular production. Of course they're similar stories; they're both lazy. At the same time, it's apparent that nobody capable of writing the Mercury piece -- which is by handy measure the more literate of the two -- would have tried to copy the first.

So, given: Neither writer should think about putting this clipping in a resume as he or she goes forward into the bigger future. But for the first writer to publish such mediocrity to complain that somebody else robbed him of his 'ideas' or 'structure' is ludicrous, bordering on pathetic. It's the sort of claim that should have been bandied once or twice about the office or at a drinking session and been dismissed by colleagues with a polite smile and an uncomfortable silence. That the current editors of WW think they've got a case for anything more here is laughable. No, strike that. It's sad.

These are two utterly pedestrian pieces that resemble each other because they have both been phoned-in, no doubt because the show didn't deserve much more. But anyone who had read the first and had a whit of skill or self-respect as a writer would have bent over backwards to avoid echoing it. And anyone with skill or self-respect who had written the first and felt the second had stolen from it would be ashamed to bring the attention to the fact. ('Hey! Did you see that one person shart in their pants at the bar on Friday? I DID THAT LAST WEEK! Fuckin' copycat!')

This is plagiarism -- or 'copying' or 'being influenced' or whatever -- in the same way that Ted Kulongoski is a titan of statesmanship.

Kick their asses.

Retain the services of an attorney, and that apology you are due will likely materialize quickly.

Weak Willy to Merc (and pretty much everyone):

"We have noted your objections.

This is a freeish country. On matters of pop culture, everyone is entitled to thier opinion. However, despite great evidence to the contrary, we have decided to ignore your objections. The columns are plagiarized. That's our story, and we're sticking to it.

Remember, you are entitled to your opinion. You are also entitled to our opinion...

Which is right. It's the way we roll, yo."

Apparently, Willamette Week thinks "opinion" is enough justification to potentially damage another person's career. I wonder if a judge would agree.

"A number of WW staffers read both Ben's and Alison's reviews and came to the conclusion that the structure and form of Alison's review (especially in the first half) were not technically plagiaristic, yet so similar that they could not be explained away as formulaic writing."

Ok, so point of clarification for the peeps at WW... If you're not calling it 'technically plageristic', then what are you calling it? You kind of have to go one way or the other.... either it is, or it isn't, right?

I dumped WW in 2004 when a lot of their articles started to turn fluffy, yet dull. Went to the merc because at least I can laugh at the fluff with them.

I kept reading the WWeek.com site for a while, until this latest site redesign, and then I deleted the bookmark. The new site design is horrible, there are articles/text spewed all over the page, it's quite difficult to find anything under a particular department/interest.

Oh well.

My opinion on this is WW is way out of line. My father was a critic in L.A. for a firm reviewing journal, and he'd have me pour over each review growing up, and after having done this hundreds of times, both of these reviews are typical banter about plays. Has anyone linked to other reviews with similar prose? Shouldn't be hard to find...

Oh, and here is a funny "copycat" video that is related to this story:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1zzto_hilarious-video

Floyd Collins, in the words of Ben's review, might have been "stuck in a hole", but I don't think it's even half as deep as the one that WW has dug for itself on this.

Oh, really, I shouldn't say I think. I should say I hope. Because at this point, WW has secured their position as the smug weekly that believes it can, and should, use any means necessary to advance its own position.

Ben's review, the notion of the paper being "100%" behind him, and now this latest drivel all show pretty convincingly that their allegiance isn't to the truth, but to their own aggrandizement.

And proving that the allegiance isn't to the truth is pretty much the worst thing a newspaper can demonstrate about itself.

I'll end where I began, back in the original Blogtown post about this.

Ben Waterhouse, you're full of shit. Aaron Mesh, you're full of shit. Kelly Clarke, you're full of shit. Ian Gillingham, you're full of shit.

And that means everyone in any positions above them, at this point, is full of shit as well.

Which makes WW not even worth wiping my ass with, because it's already full of shit.

that response from ww is way out of line. are we supposed to be shocked that some "forms and structures" might be "similar" in two play reviews of under 500 words? i understand the impulse to stand by your man, but this is idiocy. apologies, at the very least, are in order from ww. we're waiting!

Media circus is one phrase that shows up in both reviews. I'm having some fun watching. I see Wm. Steven Humphrey dressed in a red coat with gold buttons and a top hat.

I'd say that Matt's WW-gate post calling out Jaquiss and Meeker on Tuesday influenced Ben's Thursday post about Alison more than his review of Floyd Collins influenced hers.

Ben tried to score some points by linking to an old WW story by Nigel Jaquiss and John Schrag busting Phil B. for a salon.com article. But what struck me as interesting was that the 2001 piece's description of the Mercury as a "a local light-on-news weekly aimed at the club-hopping set" is not accurate today. IMO, Blog Town is creaming both the WWeek's and the Oregonian's attempts to create a relevant local news presence online.

It is telling that Alison found out about Waterhouse's post from a friend who read about it at oregonmediainsiders.com. Probably very few people first saw it on wwire.

hmm a plagarist would never work at the merc...right?

I'm struck by how similar the WWeek is to the Bush administration. When confronted with one's own failings, just retreat deeper into the original mistruth. What they SHOULD have done was say, "look, like all writers, Ben is naturally defensive of his own work. He thought he detected some similarities between his work and Allison's. While it doesn't appear to us to be plagiarism, we respect his opinion." Simple as that. But instead, the powers-that-be over there are slowly getting drawn into this absurd situation. Now it has gone too far for anyone at WWeek to back down.

It wouldn't be so bad if they would have the guts to actually say that she plagiarized. But of course they are taking the coward's way out--trying to insinuate that she plagiarized while leaving themselves enough wriggle room to avoid a defamation suit. The fact that they are parsing their words so carefully should be everyone's main clue that they KNOW they don't have a leg to stand upon.

this all smacks of byron beck. doesn't he really run (or pretend to) that whole stupid operation over there? everyone says he has his hands all over everything over there.

can you imagine ww ever attacking the oregonian in this way? uh uh. that wouldn't fly for a second or they'd get smackd with a lawsuit. this is stupid, it's petty, it's trite and it's also really fucking sad.

not to say i think allison hallett is a brilliant writer. neither is ben waterhose. but this is just dumb dumb dumb.

gotta respect the merc for holdin its head high.

Now that we know that WW's red flag was raised because of the first half of Alison's review, it might be interesting to note that the three phrases most similar in the first paragraphs of the reviews--"Floyd Collins", "in 1925" and "media circus"--bring up 243 hits on Google. Hell, even Marty Hughley of the O is in that search result; how come no one's accusing him of copying Ben? Point is, there aren't many different ways to write a 300-word review.

"this all smacks of byron beck. doesn't he really run (or pretend to) that whole stupid operation over there? everyone says he has his hands all over everything over there."

Finally! Someone understands ME!

It is I, Byron Beck.
I am Ben's immediate editor.
But I am much more than that.
You see, Ben is in fact just a replicant.
A MACHINE! I built him so he could do my evil bidding. We have been plotting to take over the city of Portland, and needed this little ruse to distract all of you from the real news of the day, like say, duct tape, and how a Seattle-based publication full of forty-year-olds will one day become so ironic that it will implode under all it's coolness.

btw, when did bix become a raving lunatic?
loved the guy when he had his own site, now he sounds like he is one log short of a Montana cabin.

Keep laughing, Byron. Your condescending attitude isn't helping your case. The WW owes Alison an apology, and we're all still waiting for it.

Byron, I think it might be this crazy auto-attack mode that people are talking about. In that comment, you managed to attack the Merc, b!X, Montana residents, 40-year-olds, and replicants.

Alison: sounds like you have the basis for a defamation suit. Apology or not.

You've been slandered, accused of an ethical violation that is anathema to your chosen profession. In a public forum, no less.

Is it without merit? A judge can decide. Truth is the ultimate defense against a defamation suit. The burden of proof is on WWeek.

Wow. After Beck slagging b!x, I'm going to demand a refund on my Weak Willy subscription...

Oh, crap. It's free. Forgot.

Well, since we can't have that, can I please have the years I spent reading WW back.

Oh, crap. No time travel.

Hell, this one isn't going too well, is it? B-)

I'm surprised Mr. Beck found the time to respond. Don't you have a glowing revue of some trite disposable reality TV show starring washed up has-beens and karaoke singers to write, Byron?

Why is the Mercury up in arms? Ben did what they do all day long. They fuck with people and act like a bunch of monkeys fucking football. The Merc had it coming.
Ben accused Alison of not doing her homework. Which she didn't. He didn't accuse her of stealing, he accused her of being boring...which she is. So back off him.
If you want something to be pissed off about,
The Mercury steals freelance writers ideas and give them to their staff.
That is theft, unethical and bullshit.
The Mercury has no room to talk about ethics.

What I'm saying is that the form of Alison's review is exactly like Ben's. She didn't lift Ben's text word for word, but she may as well have. She should have written something new...Covered new ground. I don't think Ben owes her anything.
In contrast, I think the Mercury owes the freelance writers it fucks over, not only an appology, but the money it owes.
Fuck the Mercury.

Wow. You throw around baseless accusations just like they do at the WW. Of course you do it in the most chickenshit anonymous way, "I Remember." We pride ourselves on treating our freelancers better than any other media outlet in town. If you believe otherwise, call me, prove it, and we'll work it out.

Las Vegas
[url=http://condosforrent-las-newyears-vegas.gebook.org/] condosforrent las newyears vegas [/url]