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July 11, 2004
Roca's Recycling
News of dance critic Octavio Roca’s firing from the Miami Herald has now reached USA Today. Roca was caught lifting passages he had written for the San Francisco Chronicle and inserting them into articles for the Herald; in its snarky exposé, the New Times Broward-Palm Beach offers some compelling evidence (scroll down to “The Xerox Man”) while the Herald itself tenders a somber mea culpa.
The New Times, which broke the story, accuses Roca of “self-plagiarism,” a charge the folks at Ballet Alert! were quick to question. Meanwhile at CriticalDance, fellow Bay Area critic Mary Ellen Hunt dishes out more flagrant examples of Roca’s recycling.
Of course, most of the critics in the Bay Area knew Roca during his tenure at the Chronicle—-he was a warm, knowledgeable, gracious presence in the press room. And we had noticed his habit of storing away favorite paragraphs to reuse on a rainy day. Were we, as Hunt suggests, lazy for not outing him? Were we simply abiding by a code of honor? Or was a serious infringement of journalistic ethics not committed until Roca repeated words written for the Chronicle in the Herald, thus breaking copyright?
Roca’s firing has spurred debate among critics as to the nature and severity of his transgressions, and this is all to the good. Is it accurate to say Roca plagiarized himself? That depends upon which dictionary you consult for the definition of “plagiarize.” But the issue is one of attribution. Just as a biographer must cite her sources when appropriating another’s work, so Roca ought to have cited his. If he had led his recycling with, “as I wrote for the Chronicle in 1999,” and then quoted whole paragraphs, no infraction would have occurred.
But then, one doubts the Miami Herald would have continued to pay him for trotting out greatest hits. If I had intentionally reused my writing and consequently lost my job, I’d be far from outraged. I’d be contrite, as I’m sure Roca is.
Posted by Rachel at July 11, 2004 10:02 PM
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