Kleinlein's Crimes Against Journalism: Plagiarism, Racism, Irrelevance

Enough of Ken Kleinlein's "Crime Scene" column. He has already been exposed for basing his last effort on fiction, urban myth and e-mails from friends of friends. Surely Gondo editors would simply give his silliness a quick tap with their delete key.

Not so. This week, he rates almost half the page 6 news hole. Here's what Venice subscribers had thrown on their porches yesterday morning:

A "story" with no source. An actual editor would ask Kleinlein what organization gathered the data showing “murders of police officers have increased dramatically.” Kleinlein didn't wake up yesterday morning knowing this. He read it somewhere. He took notes. He folded his source's information into his column under his by-line. He did not tell editors or readers where the information came from. That's stealing -- an ethical felony called plagiarism.

Kleinlein knows very well stealing stuff is wrong. When he uses information he got from sources that he does not acknowledge, his column becomes the crime scene. His editors know that. But they choose to overlook it for the boys in blue.

Readers also got a "story" with no time frame. An actual editor would ask Kleinlein what time periods his sources compared to arrive at his claim that numbers are “on the rise.” Every journalism 101 student knows how to compare this month’s numbers with the “same period last year,” or similar. Kleinlein doesn’t – and local readers deserve better.

Why 1971-1981? An actual editor would ask Kleinlein why he dredges up a decade that ended 30 years ago and uses it to claim “a number” of the period's LEO deaths are the work of “The Black Liberation Army.” Readers deserve better than Kleinlein's racism.

An actual editor would ask Kleinlein to identify the sources of the “answers” he concocts to the loaded, biased, straw man question he uses to frame the rest of his “story:” What contributes to “this senseless and psychotic behavior?” Readers deserve more than his senseless speculation.

An actual editor would ask Kleinlein why the anecdotal reports from New York, Pennsylvania, California? The closest he gets to his publisher’s circulation area is the Florida Panhandle – 400 miles north.

And, one last thing: What does John Wayne have to do with anything?

C’mon guys. If you need filler, surely there’s a nice press release from a hard-working organization or agency that might actually relate to your readership. Kleinlein’s ego-piece is clearly an embarrassment – he just hasn’t figured that out yet.

Short-Change Complaints from One Gondolier Reader Increase

The headline: “Short-change complaints showing an increase.” But, the story doesn’t report this or anything remotely similar.

To say something is on the increase, real editors require (a) a report of how many events occurred last week, last month, last year – some base for comparison, and then (b) a report of how many events occurred this week, this month, this year.
“Crime Scene Columnist” Ken Kleinlein gives no such data. What he does offer, however, is a five-year-old urban legend as “news.”

Kleinlein claims “a potential victim from Texas, wrote” him (doesn’t say when). Now, Kleinlein is a retired cop in Sarasota. Unlike an actual journalist, Kleinlein doesn’t feel the need to name the “potential victim,” which might add some credibility to his story that Walmart customers are secretly charged for cash they didn’t ask for.

And a dash of credibility is sorely needed. The long letter Kleinlein puts inside quote marks is riddled with cop-speak: A supervisor “responded,” and “after the second transaction,” and “at this point,” just doesn’t sound like an irate “potential victim” describing his near-loss of $40 in a cash-back transaction at Houston Walmart.

The scam Kleinlein claims to be warning readers about is a five-year-old urban legend that has been pretty much debunked by the nice folks at Snopes, a Web site that looks into rumors and puts the results on the Internet for all to see – even Ken Kleinlein and Venice Gondolier editors. The urban legend claims Walmart employees secretly add “cash back” transactions when ringing up purchases. Snopes reports an early story circulated in November 2004, followed by a story from Milford, Del., and then a similar one from Houston, Texas – the city Kleinlein claims his correspondent contacted him from.

Kleinlein reports “Walmart Security is intensely investigating,” but he fails to tell who gave him this information or what intense involves.

Not to worry. Snopes investigated and found Walmart says clerks' registers are not equipped to add cash back transactions. Clerks cannot initiate cash-back requests. Only a customer can do this in a two-step process that includes pushing a “yes” button at the customer terminal and then selecting an amount. Furthermore, cash-back transactions are restricted to debit cards; the urban legend stories all involve credit card users.

Apparently the rumor is in revival. Just last month, a a real reporter in Traverse City, Mich., wrote on the same topic. The difference is, the Michigan reporter actually went to Walmarts, made phone calls, interviewed knowledgeable people, assembled facts, went to see with his own eyes how things work, and named and dated his work. The result: same as Snopes; the rumor is just there to scare you, folks.

How did this baseless rumor get started? Snopes says one reasonable inference is customers are “misplacing the blame for their own errors.”

As a juicy scare, the story gets legs every time a retired cop would rather sound knowledgeable than be knowledgeable. His ego error is compounded when the amateur writer’s editors don’t check their “columnist” against the basic standards of their profession. The only scam here stems from a newspaper that apparently doesn't see the need for accountability.

So, back to the headline. Is there an increase in “Short-change complaints?” Absolutely –- from Gondolier readers who crave genuine news instead of five-year-old fiction from five states away.

Detective's Fake Column Scams Sun News Editors

The story on DeSoto Sun's local page 3 this morning announces a scam "is being perpetuated nationwide." The story, by-lined Ken Kleinlein (neither staff writer nor regular columnist) comes to readers in the form of a "letter" that claims to be from a victim. Kleinlein claims to be a detective. Too bad he didn't do a little Internet investigation that would have taken him directly to Snopes.com.

The letter has all the hallmarks of fake news: first-names only, city and date unreported, credible source (a police report, maybe?) omitted, all presented by a naif. A real newspaper editor would have spotted the holes in this story on first reading.

"Ken Kleinlein," if that's his real name, posted the identical column on a local blog last month ("Red County: Grassroots Politics from the Center Right") with "thanks" to a NYPD officer for "contributing" to his report. Evidently, the blog wasn't enough glory, so Kleinlein sought out the "mainstream media" to get his "story" and picture in the public eye. Here's a more credible version -- one with less writer's ego, front and center.

According to Snopes, the baloney-detection site, the incident did happen -- in Sydney, Australia. Over a three-day period last October, a rip-off artist delivered gift baskets to homes and requested a $3.50-delivery fee, payable via credit card swiped in a portable electronic-funds-transfer gizmo; later in the day, he used the EFT information to clean out bank accounts. The con man was arrested and charged "with ten counts of fraud," New South Wales Police said in press release.

Kleinlein's "story" appears word-for-word on more than a dozen Internet sites -- strongly suggesting he and his NYPD buddy are unlikely to be the original writers. That alone makes the "detective" guilty of presenting the words and work of others as his own (or his friend's), and not properly crediting the source. His eighth-grade Language Arts teacher taught him the scam is called plagiarism.

Local editors have been duped -- and not by someone terribly clever -- because they failed to require this columnist-sprung-from-the-woodwork to provide the basics of any news story: who, what, when, where along with an independent source for verification.

Readers have been scammed because they have been fed an urban legend in the making instead of real news. Sure, warn readers of of a clever scam, but don't lie and exaggerate ("being perpetuated nation wide" and "especially prevelant around the holidays"). Get a real reporter to interview "Detective Ken Kleinlein," and then verify, verify, verify.