March 24, 2006

Conservative Weblogger Doesn't Last a Week

Ben Domenech didn't last a week as a weblogger for washingtonpost.com. It wasn't the bile-spewing Left or Intelligent Design critics that got him. It was his past. This post at Obsidian Wings is pretty damning. Such criticism must have been damning to Domenech. He resigned.

Lefty webloggers may want his head on their trophy wall. If I were them I wouldn't. First, no body outside the political blogosphere knows who Domenech is. Second, he didn't last a week. That's far from taking down an institution like Dan Rather.

Domenech has written far more than I have. Part of that comes from him being an ex-speech writer. When a young writer is cutting their teeth they will make mistakes. Is past plagerism unforgiveable? Does it have a statute of limitations? When writers are seeking a new gig should they admit the mistakes in their past and hope their recent track record can make up for it?

TAM has existed since 1999. Before that I wrote occasional op-eds in my college newspaper. In all that writing I don't recall ever copying someone elses work, but I might have. Say the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel wanted to take weblogs seriously and wanted me on board. How would I deal with a potential time bomb sitting in my archives just waiting for rabid partisans to detonate?

UPDATE: Domenech (AKA Augustine) posted his explanation to plagerism charges and his resignation. The story made it on The Drudge Report so the RedState servers are under a lot of stress. They're reasonable explanations. More reasonable than the hateful responses of his Leftist critics. They are still errors of judgement, but being young (he was 17 at the time) is about making mistakes and learning from them. It makes me ask the question, "When does a writer's past mistakes no longer hurt him?"

Here's something to think about: had Domenech been caught drinking at 17 he would still be writing Red America. If he would have been caught smoking pot he might be praised. Some youthful indiscretions are more forgivable than others.

UPDATE II: National Review Online admits Domenech plagerized, and it wasn't for a college paper. "A side-by-side comparison to another review of the same film speaks for itself. There is no excuse for plagiarism and we apologize to our readers and to Steve Murray of the Cox News Service from whose piece the language was lifted."

With that Domenech would have been booted from the Red America weblog had he not resigned. That's understandable for an institution like The Washington Post who has a reputation to maintain. I would like to know is Domenech scarred for life? Will editors reject job opportunities or even free lance articles when he's 40, 50, or even 80 because of what he did in his teens and 20s? With the internet as a permanent archive we all should wonder how long our past mistakes will haunt us.

What's really disappointing is washingtonpost.com will be "likely to look for someone with a more traditional journalism background." Domenech's flagrant copying tarred the reputations of conservative webloggers everywhere. Thanks a lot, Ben.

[via Michelle Malkin]