Former New Town editor accused of plagiarism
Former New Town editor accused of plagiarism
By Jerry W. Kram
A former editor of the New Town News has resigned as editor of a Minnesota paper after being accused of passing off humor columns written by others as his own.
Jon Flatland was Managing Editor of The Times in Blooming Prairie, Minn., when he was accused by humor and travel writer Dave Fox of copying at least a dozen columns written by Fox and other writers. Times Publisher Rick Bussler wrote that after the allegations surfaced, Flatland resigned and had left Blooming Prairie.
Bussler wrote in “An Apology to Readers,” in the paper, “The Times discovered virtually nothing in Flatland’s weekly columns is his own original work. After doing some digging, we discovered Flatland makes a weekly habit of ripping off humor columns from a wide range of other writers-from independent bloggers to columnists at major daily newspapers such as the Dallas Morning News.”
