Three confirmed cases of plagiarism were recorded during the first week of the campaign against plagiarism in the mass media entitled “Plagiarism is theft! Let’s find out the plagiarizers”, which was launched by the Press Council. Several other cases are being examined. Contacted by IPN, the Council’s secretary Petru Macovei said these cases refer to the unauthorized copying of journalistic texts, some of which are copied fully or without indicating the source. This runs counter to the Journalist’s Deontological Code, IPN reports.

According to Macovei, not the gravity of the cases of plagiarism, but rather their frequency points to the seriousness of the problem. “I hope this campaign will make the colleagues who resort to such practices that show lack of respect for copyright to give up copying,” he stated.

The Press Council’s secretary said that after the publication of the plagiarized texts, the media institutions examine the cases themselves, even if nobody wants to admit that this is an institutional practice of unauthorized copying. “We hope to return to normality in time and citing will be in accordance with the deontological code, with mandatory reference to the first source and direct link to the online case. We hope the media consumers will be more selective and critical in relation to the published information and the reputation of the media institutions and journalists will value more,” said Petru Macovei.

According to him, the campaign against plagiarism in the mass media does not have a definite term. “We will permanently support this campaign. If there are no complaints or notifications at a certain moment, this will mean that we achieved our goal,” stated the Council’s secretary.

The campaign against plagiarism in the mass media entitled “Plagiarism is theft! Let’s find out the plagiarizers” was launched on May 19 with the aim of sensitizing the journalistic community to cases of plagiarism. The journalists are urged to report each case of plagiarism on the platform www.MediaForum.md.