Toronto Star | National Post
Chris Spence lifted passages from The New York Times and other sources for an opinion piece published January 5 in the Toronto Star. Spence is the director of education for Toronto’s school board.
“I was careless and sloppy and rushed, and I should have given credit to some of the work that I used,” Spence told Star education reporter Kristin Rushowy. The board’s chair said Spence “sees this as an honest mistake, but something that needs to be corrected.”
A note from Star Public Editor Kathy English perches atop Spence’s article, acknowledging the plagiarism and listing the sources Spence pilfered:
Those sources include the “Coaching Excellence” blog of the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching, the blog, Pro Sport Chick, an online encyclopedia and a 1989 Op-Ed article in the New York Times written by Anita L. Defrantz, then president of the Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles and a current member of the International Olympic Committee.
The Star article “makes Spence’s offence sound considerably less grievous than it is,” Chris Selley writes in the National Post, who calls it “the worst case of plagiarism I have ever seen in a newspaper” and provides side-by-side comparisons of Spence’s plagiarized passages with the originals.
“There is no excuse for what I did,” Spence said in a letter posted on the school board’s site Wednesday.
Earlier this month, the Star apologized after learning one of its reporters lifted material from The Globe and Mail.
