An Open Letter to Hailey Mac Arthur

From Ms. Mac Arthur's blog.

Dear Ms. Hailey Laine Isadora Mac Arthur,

I don’t know you. But I know you’re wrong.

I’m not a Journalism major at the University of Florida; I’m an English major. But I used to be a Journalism major. I used to dream of writing the columns and stories you find in Sports Illustrated or The Sporting News; I used to want to change the world by telling stories while getting the frissons of joy a byline bestows.

I changed majors for two reasons. First, journalism as a field was something I could no longer see myself pursuing as a career.

Second, it was hard.

A journalist has many rules to follow, but, above all, must digilently strive to adhere to truth, to telling a story as fully and faithfully as possible. It is a daunting, demanding task at its most basic level of simple reporting of facts, even removed from the artistry some journalists weave into their stories. If truth is not delivered, in any way, the journalist, reporting facts, has failed.

And that, Hailey Mac Arthur, is what you have done, if the charges leveled against you are proven true.

Maybe The Alligator’s sharp rebuke won’t be enough. Maybe William McKeen’s disappointment won’t be enough. Maybe your college’s dismay won’t be enough. Maybe even a public shaming by Gawker, with all the attendant snark, won’t be enough. (I’ll wager that you read Gawker.)

You’ve been compared to Maureen Dowd and Carrie Bradshaw on Gawker, and, in my discussions with other people about this incident, Bill Plaschke, and you would probably be pleased with those comparisons. Your interview with Gay Talese gives the reader reason to cringe from the lede to the last period, but is at least well-written. You write in your bio about this internship you no longer have and the next one, which involves “jet(ting) off” to Brazil in September. You tout yourself as an “award-winning journalist,” rather than a journalist who has won awards.

All of that self-congratulatory and laudatory tripe means nothing at this moment, and may never be more than soothing whispers for your ego, because you are a plagiarist.

Maybe the most offensive sentence in your bio is this:

UF’s College of Journalism and Communications touts one of the top 10 journalism schools in the nation, you know.

That same institution that lends you its estimable name when it accepts and agrees to educate you is the one whose good name you coated in soot with these charges of plagiarism. The Alligator’s response is scathing:

Not only did Mac Arthur create a stigma against our beloved J-School (thanks, because as if finding internships wasn’t hard enough already, now we come from ‘that school’), she disappointed the peers and professors who previously held her in high esteem.

A quick look at the comments of the news article reporting finds shock and dismay from your peers.

From “eavoss”:

This is frustrating. Here was a reporter I really looked up to (her August 2008 story on the erotic dancers suffering from the economic recession was fantastic), and I am completely shocked.

This is a sad day for the UF College of Journalism. I’d hate to be McKeen or Foley right now.

From “Dominick”:

The first thing that came to my mind when I heard about this was: “Why?”

Ms. Mac Arthur is a very talented writer, from everything I’ve read of her’s in the past. Was it the pressure of feeling unable to live up to yourself? Impress you editors? Dazzle readers?

The stolen lines seemed to me more like lifted form, not facts. I’d love to know why she decided to rip off the Times (including a first-person account about losing a child, no less).

I don’t know what I feel worse about — knowing that people might now associate UF’s j-school with plagiarism, or that our faculty, for all their labors, have been let down.

Forget my background as a former Journalism major: As a UF student, the idea that there is someone I could have graduated with committing a betrayal of their education this heinous is appalling.

Though the football team’s struggles to abide by the law have been well-documented, those are issues of personal, not professional conduct. And those reflect poorly first and foremost, in my mind, on the student-athletes involved, and do not sully the reputation of entire and apparently innocent colleges.

You should know, Hailey, that your single colossal error might be enough to cause editors to doubt whether UF students should be considered for internships, to cause professors to doubt whether their lectures are worth giving, to destroy much of the sterling brand the UF College of Journalism and Communications has.

You should know those things because they are far easier conclusions for the outsider to reach than the little-known truth of the school’s lofty rankings.

You should know that this is far bigger than you. And you should know better than this.

Perhaps the most offensive thing about all of this, though, is how what isn’t on your blog reflects your seeming inability to grasp that you have made the wrong move in not responding to your firing.

You’re a Journalism major, and you’re savvy enough to have a blog; by the accounts I’ve read, you also have substantial talents as a storyteller.

Why not control your own news cycle? Why delete your Facebook and other online profiles? Why not immediately and sincerely apologize for doing what you did and try to earn back some shreds of the esteem others held you in by submitting yourself to the consequences?

Playing the ostrich and hiding your head in the sand makes you look guilty and fearful. Playing penitent and owning up to your mistake would be as noble and courageous as you could be in this situation.

Not only would you seize control of your “message,” whatever it could be, you would continue to make a name for yourself; though this comes out of the most salacious and ethically bankrupt situations a journalist could face, you can be sure that your name is now known in a few more newsrooms than it was yesterday.

And you may yet get a second chance, if your talents and work ethic can somehow restore faith in your ability to be a competent and honest journalist.

But how do you want those people in those newsrooms to respond to you when you interview for a job? They have already seen you trample on journalism’s ethics; will you have a response for the inevitable question, “Why not apologize?”

If you were able to see that, in this increasingly public world, your best bet to fight fire is not fleeing but rather facing it, with your own voice, you would perhaps earn back an iota of respect from the people who worked with you and taught you everything you tossed to the wind with your foolishness.

But, then, I may be giving you more credit than you deserve.

Sincerely,

Andy Hutchins, UF 2011