Case Study of Professional Deviance

Case Study of Professional Deviance

Professional Deviance Behavior by Doris Kearns Goodwin

Doris Kearns Goodwin displayed deviant behavior in the form of plagiarism, as her best seller of 1987, The Fitzgeralds and Kennedys was accused by The Weekly Standard to contain huge amount of material which was plagiarized from several sources. She further intensified the deviance of behavior by writing an essay to hide her mistakes and blamed it on the inadequate research procedures. She also added later on that The Fitzgeralds and Kennedys had more than errors than those which had been alleged by the Standard. This statement was made by her in The New York Times as an effort to conceal her mistake. She also agreed to take indefinite leaves from The News Hour with Jim Lehrer which is broadcast on PBS, where she used to frequently perform the duties of a panelist. All the available unsold copies of the current edition of The Fitzgeralds and Kennedys were also withdrawn by her from the market in an attempt to overcome her mistake and present innocence. She had previously accused another writer for plagiarism from The Fitzgeralds and Kennedys, although she was well aware that she had herself made similar mistake in the same book (Lewis, 2002).

Rationale for the Deviant Behavior

According to Doris Kearns Goodwin she had no idea about plagiarism and it was due to improper steps taken during research that lead to this error. She blamed her assistants for inadequate search techniques regarding The Fitzgeralds and Kennedys that resulted in this serious error. She stated that the presence of multiple research assistants for doing the research work was the main reason behind this mistake. She made inappropriate excuses to hide her mistake which further exaggerated the problem which she was facing. If she would have accepted her mistake instead of beating about the bush, she could have been able to protect the honor of her profession.

Professional Deviance Behavior by Stephen Glass

Stephen Glass is a former journalist who wrote for several national publications and made success. However, his career was found to be full of lies which he made in order to achieve popularity in his career. He was accused of forming lies by creating people, events and places that did not exist. Further he made up fake voice mails, fake faxes, fake notes, and fake websites to cover up for his previous lies that he had made in his career. In this way he did whatever he could to deceive the editors and the people who considered his articles to be reliable and applauded his work. He also subverted the process of fact-checking as he knew how to overturn it, as he had served as a fact-checker in a magazine. In brief, he just made up fictional characters and events and presented them as they were real. By doing this he tried to develop articles that sure gained popularity but in the end his deceiving behavior was revealed as he became unable to cover ...