Gerald Posner has long been one of those investigative reporters whose work I enjoyed and followed. He authored a book on the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Case Closed, that made what I thought was a near-airtight case that Lee Harvey Oswald did it and acted alone. (No, it was not airtight but you have to consider that in the context that the books that argue for conspiracies all, without exception, leak at every corner.) I don't trust any journalist 100% but I've found Posner to be as trustworthy as I'm ever likely to find.
It is therefore distressing to see the man enmeshed and shamed by a mini-scandal. Others noted that several sentences in recent Internet articles by Posner were lifted from articles by others. The particular material was factual stuff — the accuracy of Posner's reports was not compromised — but he had not gone to the trouble of rephrasing those lines, putting them into his own words. This is not excusable but it's also not robbing liquor stores at gunpoint.
Posner apologized on his blog, accepted full responsibility, promised to not let it happen again. He was suspended from his position with The Daily Beast, an online magazine, and then resigned. This all seems appropriate, if not a bit excessive, but it's not enough for some of Posner's colleagues/peers. A number of them (like this one) are demanding more mea culpa…or something. And there seems to be a thought out there that suggesting the punishment does not fit the crime is to argue there was no crime.
Posner's sin — and I'm not saying it wasn't a sin — was in crossing that easy line from getting info from others and getting their phrasing. If you write on the web and do research on the web, there's much to be learned from this episode. I could articulate it better but I think I'll just wait until someone else does and copy whatever they say.