The digital age is plagiarism friendly, if profitable

By SETH RICHARDSON// Journalism has two cardinal sins: don’t lie and don’t steal.

Lying has generally been considered the worse of the two. Janet Cooke, Jayson Blair, Jack Kelley and Stephen Glass know the repercussions all too well. Each one was caught lying and completely blacklisted from the industry.

But this doesn’t seem to be the case with plagiarism.

The most recent example is BuzzFeed Political Editor Benny Johnson. Johnson was caught plagiarizing no fewer than 41 times. In one of his more popular pieces “How Well Do You Know Basic U.S. Politics,” Johnson even stole Wikipedia of all places.