Brian Lehrer - Barnicle Recycles:

Embattled journalist Mike Barnicle has been naughty not nice with a recycled Christmas column in the "Daily News."

Christmas in America is full of repetition. From seeing Santa Claus at Macy's to the same Christmas movies, television shows, songs, and·chestnuts, both roasting on the open fire and the journalistic kind.

Last Sunday the New York "Daily News" published a column Mike Barnicle that began "It doesn't require huge imagination to consider what could happen today to one of history's most famous couples if they had to walk the streets of Manhattan, homeless at the height of this spectacular season." The column goes on to describe the modern day trials that Mary and Joseph would have faced in New York City if they had been seeking shelter, rather than Bethlehem during Roman times.

Barnicle is right, it doesn't require huge imagination. In fact, Barnicle wrote an incredibly similar column 8 years ago in Boston, when he was a metro columnist for the "Boston Globe." And the column provoked outrage from legendary Chicago columnist Mike Royko, who also wrote an incredibly similar column, but he wrote it back in 1967, only this time the holy couple was homeless in the windy city. James Warren is the Associate Managing Editor and Washington Bureau Chief of the "Chicago Tribune," he recently helped compile, with others, a collection of Royko's columns. When seeing Barnicle's latest he instantly called a former assistant of Royko's.

"I said Ellen, listen to this Sunday column that appeared in the New York 'Daily News' by one Mike Barnicle and 2 sentences into it she went "Oh My God."
Warren says that Barnicle's column was a blatant rip-off of a Chicago tradition.
"What's amazing about the use of the so-called Mary and Joseph column·which they re-ran every Christmas for years and years. This is thus the second time that Mike Barnicle, who is one of the more notorious journalistic thieves has ripped off the late great Royko. I mean he was caught cold stealing this same column once before. So this is sort of double plagiarism. It's a new definition of chutzpah."
Barnicle, who did not want to go on tape, did tell On The Media, quote: "These types of columns, god knows who wrote them first - Joseph and Mary, homeless couple.·I have no idea. It's a seasonal theme·.It's a seasonal thematic column that I've written. I bet you many people have written."

Barnicle's long career as a columnist at the "Boston Globe" came to an end last year, after he was charged with plagiarizing comedian George Carlin, and creating fictional characters for some of his column and passing them off as real people. But Deni Elliott, the Director of the Center for Practical Ethics at the University of Montana says this column is a far cry from Barnicle's past journalistic sins.

"I think that I first updated the Mary and Joseph story when I was in Fifth grade. I don't think that Royko was the first one to do it either. It seems to me at this point it's a trite story, but being trite isn't an ethical transgression."

The Editor of the "Sunday Daily News," Michael Kramer, who also would not go on tape, agrees. He told On The Media quote: "I don't see what the problem is, this idea probably goes back to O. Henry·.a column like this is the oldest journalistic chestnut there is."

But Ethicist Deni Elliot argues that the repetition of the idea should have been made clear to both Barnicle's editors and readers.

"I think it would have been a more compelling column to point out that the situation was worse for Mary and Joseph in '99 that when he first wrote it in '91 and far worse than when Royko first wrote it in '67."

Despite the history of the idea though, Barnicle says he doesn't remember having written it before, or having been accused of stealing it from Royko. Even though he was quoted in a "Boston Herald" article about the column in 1991.

Barnicle has been through a lot in the past couple of years. He was forced out of his job, had his credibility and integrity questioned, and as a result he told us that he is careful of what he writes.

Quote: "I am extremely cautious about it. I am extremely aware of it every single day when I sit down at the old word processor I am aware of it. I'm at the point now where I don't want to get totally paranoid about it"

But perhaps, as the old adage goes, it's not whether you're paranoid in this day and age, it's whether you're paranoid enough.