Wash Times Casts Paul Adrift Over Plagiarized Column

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The Washington Times is discontinuing Sen. Rand Paul's (R.-Ky.) weekly column after BuzzFeed reported that his Sept. 20  Times column lifted passages from a Dan Stewart article in The Week without attribution, the Gawker.com Web site reports.

The Times' decision to end the column that Paul began writing last summer is the sour cherry atop a melted sundae of a week for the 50-year-old Republican and Tea Party fave who was elected to the Senate in 2010. Last week, Politico and Rachel Maddow on MSNBC alleged that speeches given by Paul have plagiarized a variety of sources, including Associated Press articles and Wikipedia pages for the films Stand and Deliver and Gattaca, Additionally, BuzzFeed claims Paul's book, Government Bullies, cribbed from a 2003 Heritage Foundation study without attribution.

Confronted with these embarrassing missteps, Sen. Paul stepped up to the plate and blamed his staff. Still, it seems as if Paul, an opthalmologist, doctors his written work as well.

Ethics Lapse, 'Plane' & Simple: NBC News Pays for Exclusive Coverage of Aerial Mishap

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Credit NBC News with the best disaster coverage money can buy, after the Washington Post detailed how the Peacock Network agreed to pay more than $100k to nine skydivers and the pilots who survived the midair crash of two small planes for exclusive coverage of their mishap.

The checkbook journalism nets NBC the right to air amateur footage from the divers' helmet cameras on Today, Dateline and the Nightly News with Brian Williams and two-week exclusive rights to interview the fortunate survivors, according to the Post article. Although print and radio journalists may speak to those involved in the accident, the divers and pilots will not sit down for any tv interviews other than for NBC during the two-week window, the Post quoted one of the survivors as saying.

Paying for stories is frowned on by the Society of Professional Journalists and other news groups because it encourages lazy journalism, tempts payees to embellish their stories and threatens to compromise the payor news organization's objectivity in its coverage. "TUOL" questions if NBC News' money is well-spent and wonders whether the midair crash, however thrilling to watch, is particularly informative for viewers. Here's hoping financially challenged would-be daredevils don't begin staging accidents in search of a big payday from a news organization.

Did Jane Goodall's New Book 'Ape' Other Works?

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Seeds of Hope is the new book co-authored by conservationist/animal activist Dame Jane Goodall and Gail Hudson, but according to The Washington Post, some of the "roots" of Seeds were pulled from other sources without attribution.

Initially discovered by a Post book reviewer, the daily allegedly uncovered at least a dozen passages in Seeds of Hope that lacked footnotes or attribution, and in some instances, appeared verbatim on Web sites. Additionally, the Post raised questions about the authenticity of  interviews and quotes that appear in the book.

The book, for example, attributes a quote to a purported interview with botanist Matt Daws, but the same quote appeared in a 2009 article on the Gardens Web site, and Daws responded to a Post email that he did not recall ever speaking to Goodall. The book also includes unattributed passages from the Choice Organic Teas Web site, an institution that contributes to the Jane Goodall Institute, according to the Post article.

Grand Central, publisher of the book, which lacks end notes or a bibliography, promised to add credits in subsequent editions of Seeds of Hope. The 78-year-old Goodall, best-known for her 45-year study of wild chimpanzees in Tanzania's Gombe Stream National Park, emailed the Post that she was "distressed to discover that some of the excellent and valuable sources were not properly cited, and I want to express my sincere apologies."

When it comes to book research, as the old adage says: "Monkey see, monkey cite."

Mass. Weekly Hires Ombudsman to Monitor Coverage of Publisher's Wife's Candidacy

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That Mass. Rep. Linda Dorcena Forry (D-Dorchester) would pursue the seat vacated by State Sen. Jack Hart in a special election slated for May 28, following an April 30 primary vote, is not unusual, as the Bay State is not wanting for ambitious politicians.

What adds some zest to the race is that Rep. Forry's spouse, Bill Forry, is editor and publisher, and her father-in-law, Ed Forry, assistant publisher of the weekly Dorchester Record. To derail any potential complaints about bias and unfair coverage, the Record has hired Michael Jonas to serve as a temporary ombudsman to monitor the paper's election coverage, the iMediaEthics.org Web site reported.

Jonas, who has never served as an ombudsman before, has a verbal agreement to serve in that capacity at least through the primary, though its unclear whether his time card will continue to be punched if Rep. Forry doesn't best her primary opponents, Nick Collins, Joseph Ureneck and Maureen Dahill in the April run-off.

Bill Forry said carrying an ombudsman full-time is a luxury that a small paper can't afford. When his spouse ran for state rep in a special election in 2004-2005, the Record hired then-Brockton Enterprise reporter Dave Connolly to be a temporary ombudsman, much as Jonas is now.

Of course, the conflict of interest issue concerning journo-politico marital unions doesn't end when the last ballot is counted. The real question is how has the Dorchester Record covered Rep. Forry's nearly eight years in office and would its reporters and editorial writers be balanced in their coverage were she to succeed Sen. Hart?

Gail Huff, a Boston television reporter/anchor, stepped down from her position at WCVB-TV when her husband, Scott Brown, battled Elizabeth Warren in last fall's U.S. Senate race in which Warren prevailed.

Malaysia to Bloggers: If We Want Your Opinion, We'll Pay You for It

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In an appalling smear-for-hire campaign, 10 online media columnists were paid by the Malaysian government to trash opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim on various U.S. media Web sites, according to a BuzzFeed story reported by paidContent.org.

Allegedly, former Guardian opinion columnist Joshua Trevino, whom the daily jettisoned last year over conflict of interest concerns, served as the Malaysian government's conduit, facilitating payments ranging from $2,000 to $36,000 to the 10 columnists, who, in turn, wrote about Malaysia. Trevino, himself, garnered more than $389,000 from Malaysia, according to the paidContent account of the BuzzFeed scoop. Ibrahim is enmeshed in a sodomy trial that human rights advocates have decried as politically motivated.

Among the beneficiaries of the Southeast Asian nation's largesse were conservative columnists for The National Review, Huffington Post and Red State. HuffPo pulled the offending posts after the BuzzFeed story broke, citing a conflict of interest breach, but "TUOL"'s Facetiousnes Editor suspects HuffPo just objects to its contributors being paid for their efforts, however ignoble.

The paidContent article blames online journalism sites' voracious need for content for making it so easy for Malaysia to manipulate the media for its own purposes. Strange times, indeed, when BuzzFeed, best-known for publishing cat photos ad nauseum, does solid investigative reporting at the same time Watergate legend, the Washington Post's Bob Woodward, arrogantly displays his increasing irrelevance, imploding on the Sunday talk-show circuit as a darling of the right-wing lambasting his treatment by Obama Administration officials.

Plagiarist's Palaver Pays Plenty

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Confession is good for the soul, but sometimes, it's also good for the bank account, Jonah Lehrer learned.

The New York Times reported that Lehrer was paid a $20,000 honorarium by the Knight Foundation, which sponsored a community journalism conference in Miami yesterday at which Lehrer delivered a speech about his plagiarism-derailed career that was streamed live online.

The New Yorker fired Lehrer last summer and the publisher of his book, Imagine: How Creativity Works (2012) pulled the book off shelves after it was revealed that Lehrer had made up quotes attributed to legendary folk singer Bob Dylan (see "TUOL" post 7/31/12).

According to the Times article,  Lehrer told the attendees: "I am the author of a book on creativity that contains several fabricated Bob Dylan quotes," and "I committed plagiarism on my blog, taking without credit or citation an entire paragraph from the blog of Christian Jarrett." Lehrer's introductory elevator speech needs a little work.

Apparently using his own words, Lehrer pledged to the audience that if were ever to write professionally again, he would tape and transcribe his interviews and make the transcripts available to interview subjects who requested them. Writing, however, is hard work, whereas there is easy money to be made on the mea culpa lecture circuit.

Unhealthy Environment: WaPo Apologizes for Plagiarism

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Correspondent William Booth is in hot water after the Washington Post apologized to readers for Booth's alleged plagiarism of a professor's article for a  monthly scientific journal, the Poynter.org Web site reported yesterday.

Booth allegedly lifted four sentences without attribution from an article by Prof. Andrea Hricko entitled "Progress and Pollution: Port Cities Prepare for the Panama Canal Expansion," from the December 3 issue of Environmental Health Perspectives. An editor's note apologized to the author and readers for the "serious lapse," and promised Booth faced "severe and appropriate" action for his transgression.

Op Ed Plagiarism Costs Education Director His Job

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An apparently plagiarized opinion piece in the January 5 issue of the Toronto Star touched off a feeding frenzy by the Canadian Press that cost Chris Spence, the Toronto District School Board's director of education, his job, according to the iMediaEthics.org blog.

After a reader tipped off public editor Kathy English, the Star posted a Note atop Spence's op-ed that read:

"This Opinion article includes substantial unattributed material from several other sources. Those sources include the 'Coaching Excellence' blog of the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching, the blog, Pro Sport Chick, an online encyclopedia and a 1989 Op-Ed article in the New York Times written by Anita L. Defrantz, then president of the Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles and a current member of the International Olympic Committee. Spence has acknowledged  that he plagiarized parts of his article and apologized to the Star and its readers."

Spence's contrite mea culpa failed to calm the waters, however, as the National Post uncovered what it claimed were other instances of plagiarism, and The Globe and Mail raised doubts concerning Spence's dissertation, alleging it contained unattributed material. Spence has resigned from the School Board post, iMediaEthics reported.

'Glock-al' Maps: Daily Publishes Location of Gun Owners

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Gannett-owned The Journal News, which serves the Lower Hudson Valley (N.Y.) counties of Putnam, Rockland and Westchester, has triggered a firestorm of protest by publishing an interactive map identifying the names and addresses of those in the daily's readership area who possess handgun or pistol permits, ABC News reported.

In the wake of the Newtown, Connecticut, slaughter of elementary school children and teachers by a deranged gunman, the Journal News said the map, published last Sunday, was of interest to its readers who want "to know about guns in their neighborhood." The map, which involved clicking on a dot to reveal the name and location of the permit owner, touched off more than 500 comments on the paper's Web site the day it appeared, largely negative.

Although the material was gleaned from public records, "TUOL" believes the Journal News map was not newsworthy, violated the permitholders' privacy rights and perhaps made them vulnerable to burglars. Whatever one's views on the hot-button issue of gun control, informing readers about the location of individuals who legally obtained gun permits is not the same as alerting neighbors that a registered sex offender has moved into the area.

Cod in the Act: Cape Daily Fires 31-Year Veteran Who Made Up Sources

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Cape Cod Times Publisher Peter Meyer and Editor Paul Pronovost have published an apology to readers regarding 59-year-old Karen Jeffrey, a Times staff writer, who was fired after an internal audit revealed she allegedly had used fake names and invented sources in 34 stories dating back to 1998.

Jeffrey joined the Times in 1981. The daily is owned by the News Corp. subsidiary Dow Jones Local Media Group. According to the published apology, Jeffrey either used false names or concocted sources in "lighter" feature articles, such as a story on a Boston Red Sox home opener and a piece on young voters, rather than in crime and other "hard" news stories.

A recent piece by Jeffrey concerning Veterans Day raised red flags. The daily's audit purportedly revealed 69 "people" quoted in her stories whom the paper was unable to verify existed.

Hartford Courant Unprepared for Plagiarized Boy Scouts Article

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The Tribune Co.-owned Hartford Courant, Connecticut's largest daily newspaper, this month accepted the resignation of reporter Hillary Federico, whom the daily acknowledged in a Nov. 1 "Setting the Record Straight" note purportedly committed plagiarism on two occasions in articles about quilting and the Boy Scouts.

According to a post by the iMediaEthics Web site (www.imediaethics.org), the Courant, whose daily circulation is roughly 132,000, questioned an article written by Federico on Aug. 24, 2012, about the Boy Scouts and a second piece about quilting that appeared in the Courant on March 16, 2012. The former allegedly mirrored an article written by Brad Mead that appeared on the Simsbury Patch Web site and before that, on the Simsbury Troop 175 Web site. Mead is the troop's scoutmaster.

The Courant apologized to readers in its Nov. 1 note. The daily has in recent years been tainted by plagiarism (see "TUOL" posts 11/29/11, 12/4/09, 9/4/09).

Doctored Syria Photo Elicits Apology from Austrian Publisher

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Austria's largest daily newspaper, Kronen Zeitung ("Krone"), has apologized for running a photo on page 4 of its July 28, 2012, edition depicting a family seemingly escaping from the rubble of war-battered Aleppo in Syria that proved to be a photo-shopped manipulation of two separate images, iMediaEthics.org reports.

Three days after the fake photo appeared, the daily printed a letter of apology from Publisher Christophe Dichand to the  Krone's 2.7 million readers, according to the iMediaEthics post. Apparently, a photo that initially appeared July 26 on the European Pressphoto Agency Web site depicting a family in which a father, accompanied by a woman wearing a hijab, carried a child down a street was made to appear as if the family were fleeing from battle-ravaged Aleppo, where the Syrian army and insurgents have engaged in bloody clashes

Social news Web site Reddit was credited for uncovering the altered dramatic photo.

'GPS' Host Loses Direction--Suspended by CNN/Time for Plagiarism

(Photo credit: marsmet541)Add Fareed Zakaria to the list of prominent media types tripped up by allegations of plagiarism.

The ubiquitous 48-year-old Zakaria, who hosts CNN foreign-affairs program GPS, is a Washington Post columnist and a Time Magazine editor at-large, admitted his recent Time column on gun control mirrored a more in-depth article on guns in America by Harvard University historian Jill Lepore that appeared in the April 23, 2012, issue of The New Yorker.

Zakaria's indiscretion was flagged by the NewsBusters conservative Web site and further disseminated by media columnist Jim Romanesko on his blog. Zakaria has been suspended indefinitely by CNN and for at least a month by Time pending further review of his past work. Both are Time Warner properties.

In reports by the Associated Press and The New York Times, Zakaria was quoted as saying: "I made a terrible mistake. It is a serious lapse and one that is entirely my fault. I apologize unreservedly to her, to my editors at Time, and to my readers."

Zakaria, who holds degrees from Harvard and Yale, was taken to task earlier this year for delivering a commencement speech at Harvard very similar to one he previously gave at Duke University. The staff of "TUOL" thought the commencement flap a bit of a tempest in a teapot as both speeches were his words and views speakers who ride the college commencement gravy train as somewhat like touring stand-up comics who perform basically the same routines at clubs around the country. There are a limited number of ways, after all, to tell fresh-faced grads headed toward unemployment or Starbucks barista training to "make a difference."

Plagiarism, however, is no laughing matter to this blog. Laziness is a common factor in the offense, and often in the case of new journalists, ignorance plays a part, whereas hubris often is the downfall of more prominent media figures. Whatever the cause, it's theft and a fireable offense in the eyes of "TUOL."

It's sad to see an intelligent individual such as Zakaria take the walk of shame that author/science writer Jonah Lehrer took last month (see "TUOL" post 7/31/12) and  that cost Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Sari Horwitz her job at the Washington Post last year (see "TUOL" post 3/23/11).

Caught Making Up Quotes, Author Quits New Yorker

Jonah Lehrer  (Photo credit: poptech) Thirty-one-year-old wunderkind Jonah Lehrer, a Columbia grad and author of three best-selling books, this week resigned as staff writer for The New Yorker after admitting to a magazine writer that he fabricated quotes in his latest book.

Michael Moynihan, a writer for Tablet Magazine, which writes about Jewish life, confronted Lehrer regarding quotes Moynihan was unable to verify that Lehrer attributed to legendary folk singer Bob Dylan in his book Imagine: How Creativity Works (2012). Lehrer admitted fabricating the quotes, according to an account in The Huffington Post. "The quotes in question either did not exist, were unintentional misquotations or represented improper combinations of previously existing quotes," Lehrer confessed.

Lehrer, author of Proust Was a Neuroscientist (2007) and How We Decide (2009), recently apologized to New Yorker readers for re-using his own previous work without attributing it. Publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has pulled the e-version of Imagine and stopped shipment of the hardcover.

Things are not going well for Lehrer, as even fabricator extraordinaire Jayson Blair, who wrote fiction for The New York Times, unbeknownst to the paper, weighed in with an article in The Daily Beast on what may have prompted Lehrer to torpedo his own career.  The staff of "TUOL" is unsure whether laziness or just a lack of journalistic sensibilities is to blame, and puzzled as to how Lehrer could have believed his putting words in Dylan's mouth wouldn't be discovered, particularly because the quotes made sense, which would make any Dylan fan suspicious.

'Botox Brittney' Story Needs an Injection of Media Ethics

Image via WikipediaIt's hard to find anyone to root for as the saga of "Botox Brittney" Upton, the 8-year-old girl who allegedly received Botox injections and virgin waxes, and purportedly was in line for a nose job and breast enhancement surgery, continues to unfold, or more accurately, unravel.

The stinkyjournalism.org Website today chronicles the depressing saga, which began with a March 23 story in the U.K. tabloid The Sun about 34-year-old Sheena Upton, a Birmingham, England, native residing in San Francisco with her daughter Brittney. The article, which included a photo of Sheena purportedly injecting her moppet's forehead with Botox, triggered a hailstorm of criticism and condemnation, which naturally, led to television appearances by Mom & daughter on ABC News' Good Morning America and CBS News" Inside Edition.

Sometimes, however, publicity is not such a good thing, as Mom learned when child protective services took Brittney away from needle-happy Sheena. Suddenly, Sheena Upton was calling herself Kerry Campbell and telling TMZ (not to be confused with The New York Times) that the whole saga was a hoax. She told the gossip site that she didn't even know what Botox was and that the whole story was staged.

If it's true that it's not true (so to speak), then the tv news organizations and the newspaper should be admonished for being so easily pranked and for not investigating the story thoroughly before it went viral. But as long as the media outlets already are at the proverbial woodshed, they also should be taken to task for engaging in mindless checkbook journalism, which is no substitute for real journalism.

According to Stinkyjournalism.org, The Sun allegedly gave Upton $200 for the story, fake name and faux photo. Inside Edition allegedly doled out $9,500 to Upton/Campbell and GMA was prepared to pay $10k to a British booker for the story. Rather than characterize the payment as checkbook journalism, GMA considered the $10k a photo licensing fee.

The sensationalism-hungry morning show viewers, eager to be outraged at the drop of a heat or needle-pricking of a pre-teen forehead, should be having some mea culpas with their morning coffee. The devoted staff of "TUOL" was angered by the distraction of the Botox story, which interrupted journalists and caused them to lose count of the number of Schwarzenegger love children.

WP Sports Twit Mike Wise: You Can't Make This Stuff Up

Image by Jeffrey Beall via FlickrWashington Post sports writer/columnist Mike Wise's ignoble online journalism experiment blew up in his face this week, resulting in a one-month suspension.

Testing his hypothesis that "anyone will print anything," the columnist Monday tweeted from his Mike Wiseguy account: "Roethlisberger will get five games, I'm told." For those of you who do not stay abreast of NFL scandals, the reference was to the severity of the penalty that may be imposed on Pittsburgh Steeler quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, whom the league is expected to suspend based on allegations by a 20-year-old coed that he sexually assaulted her in a Georgia nightclub.

According to an account by Washington Post colleague, media critic Howard Kurtz, Wise fabricated the quote, which purportedly he intended to admit five minutes after sending  the tweet, but his Twitter account allegedly froze for about 40 minutes, unbeknownst to Wise, who was participating in his radio talk show on WJFK-FM. Ah, the drawbacks of multi-tasking.  His subsequent jokey tweet that the source of his Roethlisberger story was "a casino employee in Lake Tahoe," came too late, as numerous Web sites, such as The Miami Herald and NBC's ProFootballTalk, picked up the initial message, attributing it to Wise.

Wise sent an apologetic tweet, but his superiors at the Washington Post were not in a forgiving mood. Noting that the faux news scoop compromised the impartial news judgment that WP editorial staffers profess to have, management levied the one-month suspension.

Lost in the kerfuffle of the admittedly non-life-changing football news story is that Wise's instincts may have been faulty, but his premise was correct--people will print anything they see on the Web without doing the required journalism legwork.  "TUOL" is keeping its fingers crossed that The Washington Post and The New York Times' accounts of l'affaire Wise are not part of an early elaborate April Fool's ruse.

Media Ethics: (NJ) Devils in the Details

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According to an article in today's New York Times, the NHL New Jersey Devils  have found a novel way to gain newspaper coverage in Garden State dailies owned by media giant Gannett Co.

Eric Martin has written a series of articles appearing in Gannett newspapers, such as The Asbury Park Press. Martin, however, is not a journalist, but an employee of the Devils.  Gannett doesn't pay for the articles produced by the NHL franchise, and theoretically, is unrestricted in how the articles are edited.

"TUOL" has an inkling that none of Martin's articles suggest the Devils have no chance to win the coveted Stanley Cup. Conflict of Interest 101 courses at any journalism school pound into would-be journalists that it's not a good idea to run news stories produced by the entity being "covered" by the newspaper.  Memo to Gannett--not sending a reporter to cover the hockey team is forgivable in a  time of declining circulation and ad revenues, but sometimes a cost-savings is no substitute for a face-savings.

In this case, Gannett allowed media critics to aim for an empty net.

ABC News: A New Low in Checkbook Journalism in Anthony Case

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Four months after two-year-old Caylee Anthony of Orlando, Fla., disappeared in June 2008, a Grand Jury handed down a first-degree murder charge against the toddler's mother, Casey Anthony. The toddler's remains were discovered  in December 2008.

The tragedy continues to unfold in a Florida courtroom this week as a judge is determining whether to declare the defendant  indigent, which would mean the state assuming most of the cost of her defense in the death penalty case. Here, the story takes a particularly lurid turn as Anthony's lawyers disclosed that of the $275,000 spent thus far in her defense, ABC News has footed $200,000 of the bill.

ABC News claims that in August 2008, the news operation licensed exclusive rights to certain photos and home videos of the Anthony family. Furthermore, according to court documents, ABC News paid  Casey Anthony's parents' hotel bill for a three-night stay at a Central Fla. Ritz-Carlton.

Although money changed hands a couple of months before Casey Anthony was formally charged, there is no escaping that ABC News paid a substantial sum to an individual suspected of killing her child and that the financial arrangement was not disclosed publicly until a judge compelled counsel to reveal the news organization's involvement in open court.

The litany against the practice of checkbook journalism is well-known in media critic, journalist and academic circles: it deprives media outlets that can't afford to pony up payment access to news; it encourages "lazy" journalism to buy a story rather than ferret it out with old-fashioned shoe-leather reporting; it taints the objectivity of the news outlet to have a vested interest in covering a story it paid for, and it further blurs the line between news and entertainment.

And, as in this instance, it also makes those who have a functioning moral compass nauseous to read about it.

News Anchor Never 'Tires' of Helping Target of Probe

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Not everything that happens in Las Vegas stays in Las Vegas. Just ask Nina Radetich, co-anchor of the KTNV-TV Channel 13 Action News Team.

Radetich finds herself featured in Romanesko's media news column (http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=45) for allegedly recommending the services of her public relations maven boyfriend to Tire Works owner Roshie Weightman, whose company is the target of a state probe into consumer fraud and the target of a KTNV-TV  investigative series that began last March.

Nevada's Business & Industry Dept. lodged a complaint against the 13-store Tire Works chain, alleging deceptive business practices involving purportedly charging customers for unnecessary services.  Radetich introduced a number of the stories in KTNV-TV's undercover series on Tire Works.

The San Rafael, Calif., native during recorded  telephone conversations with Weightman purportedly told her that Radetich's boyfriend, former tv journalist turned political flak Jack Finn, could handle Tire Works' media relations and counter the negative image being fostered by KTNV-TV's series.  Radetich allegedly told Weightman not to repeat their discussions about Finn to anyone.

Finn presently is a special projects manager for Nevada Energy and former spokesperson for Republican U.S. Sen. John Ensign, the born-again Christian who confessed in June 2009, to an extramarital affair with one of his female campaign staffers.  Finn denies ever speaking to Weightman.

Tire Works previously has advertised on KTNV-TV's Web site, and Weightman has made significant contributions annually to Radetich's charitable fundraiser, "Nina's Night Out." Channel 13's general manager labeled Radetich's conduct a "lapse of judgment," which may be akin to describing a parishioner burning down his church as an "overreaction."

Radetich has a bachelor in arts in Mass Communications from UCLA and 15 years' experience in broadcast journalism, with her first on-air job in Bakersfield, Calif. for KERO-TV.  “Professional electronic journalists should present the news with integrity and decency, avoiding real or perceived conflicts of interest, and respect the dignity and intelligence of the audience as well as the subjects of news." So sayeth the Ethics Code of the Radio-Television News Directors Assn. (RTNDA), which must have been covered  in UCLA on a day Radetich was absent.