Joe Milliken has spent months trying to get his career back on track, but he says a post I wrote about him is making that difficult.
In March I wrote about a front page column by the editor of the Eagle Times, a small New Hampshire paper that accused Milliken of stealing quotes and passing them off as his own. Then-editor Roger Carroll, no longer with the paper, wrote that, ?If one of my reporters did what Compass Sports Editor Joe Milliken did last week, they?d be fired on the spot.?
Carroll?s issue was that Milliken did not attend the basketball game he wrote about, but his story for the Compass included quotes that had been gathered by one of Carroll?s reporters. Carroll reached out to Milliken and his boss at the Compass to express his concerns. Milliken apologized at the time, but Carroll wanted him to admit to plagiarism. Milliken didn?t believe he plagiarized and declined to admit to that offense.
?I just couldn?t bring myself to look the other way anymore,? Carroll wrote. ?Especially once it became clear ? after a series of maddening email exchanges ? that he would apologize for just about anything, but not for stealing my work.?
I contacted Milliken at the time, but he declined to comment because he said he was looking into his legal options. My post was published with quotes I gathered from Carroll. That was in March.
About a month ago, Milliken contacted me to ask if I could take down the story. He said he?s had difficulty finding work and lost many of his contracts due to Carroll?s accusation, which he says is false. Each time he has an opportunity for a new writing job, the people looking to hire him inevitably come across my post, he said. Milliken believes this results in him not getting the job or assignment.
?The accusations that Carroll made against me have greatly affected both my professional and personal life,? he said in a email interview. ?As a freelance writer working from home, I lost all of my local freelance newspaper accounts (six in all) except for one. In every case, they simply said, ?Joe, we like you, we like your writing and we believe you when you say that you didn?t plagiarize on purpose, but this situation is too ?hot? right now and we have to protect our investment.? ?
Our approach at Poynter.org is to correct stories that are wrong and update stories with new information, but we typically deny requests to unpublish material. We explore alternatives, particularly when the story is accurate and complete but an?embarrassment to a source or subject. We may also update the old story and create a new one, which is what we decided to do in this case once Milliken wanted to talk to us after setting aside his initial plan to sue Carroll, which proved too expensive and unpredictable, he said.
He wants to tell his side of the story and restore his reputation, and I agreed to write a follow-up article with his point of view.
I also reached out to Carroll to see how he now feels about his column on Milliken. Carroll is no longer at the paper, but the staff there forwarded my questions to him by email. He hasn?t replied, nor did the current leadership at the paper offer any comment.
Milliken?s perspective
The first thing Milliken wants people to know is he did in fact make it clear the quotes in question came from elsewhere.
?I have been a sports editor/writer in the Southern Vermont/Southwestern New Hampshire areas since 2005, and had written a ?round up? article about a high school basketball game in Townshend, Vermont? a game in which I did not attend personally,? he said. ?In the article I talked about the game and gave statistics, and also included a couple coaches? quotes that I saw in Carroll?s article.?
?However,? he continued, ?after the quotes I stated ?told reporters after the game? indicating that they were not quotes given to me personally. I also included in the article, a couple ?stock photos? that were clearly labeled as images that were not taken at this particular game. Therefore, why would I include photos that were clearly not from that game, if I was trying to give the impression that I was there? When I wrote that article, I can honestly tell you that I was not thinking ?how can I make it look like I was at that game?? That thought never entered my mind.?
Milliken says Carroll called him up after article was published, and warned him that he was planning to write a column about what he saw as plagiarism.
?He called me a liar and attempted to intimidate and get me to admit that I was ?intentionally trying to give the impression that I was at that game,? and that was not the case and that is not what I apologized for,? Milliken said. ?I apologized to him for the misunderstanding and that he took my article the wrong way, but I also repeatedly told him that it was not my intention to give the impression that I was at the game, hence, my submitting of photos with the article that were not even from said game.?
The conversation was heated, and Milliken says he apologized repeatedly. But he declined to admit he?d tried to pretend he was at the game, or that he plagiarized. That apparently led Carroll to write his column.
?Several times over, I apologized for the misunderstanding ? he told me that he didn?t think my apology was sincere enough, so [Carroll said] ?it looks like I am going to have to write this article?? and hung up on me,? Milliken said. ?He even pettily accused me of putting in for the mileage as if I had gone to the game.?
Milliken says the fact that he noted that the quotes came from elsewhere meant the accusations were unjustified and inaccurate.
However, that wasn?t the only accusation Carroll made about Milliken?s work.
?Milliken?s been taking stuff out of other papers and passing it off as his own for years,? wrote Carroll, citing the fact that other unnamed local journalists had expressed that sentiment to him.
?I was really upset when Carroll accused me of this, so I approached a couple local sports writers ? who I had been working alongside for years and asked them directly if they thought I had been doing this,? Milliken told me. ?To my dismay, a couple of these gentlemen, indeed, said they thought I was guilty of this.?
Milliken said he had no idea people had concerns about his reporting.
?I would see these reporters every week at local games and have friendly conversations with them and yet no one, ever once, said to me that they thought I was stealing their information. Not Once!,? Milliken said.
He?s now aware of the concerns and regrets that it was an issue. Carroll?s column helped raise awareness, but for Milliken it also painted him as a repeat plagiarist ? an accusation he rejects.
Milliken hopes that by speaking publicly he?ll be able to win back some writing contracts, and his reputation.
?People around town still walk up to me and ask why I am not covering local sports anymore, and that they miss my sports writing and photography about their kids, grand children, friends,? he said.
Milliken is bothered by the fact that Carroll moved on from the Eagle Times, leaving him to deal with the aftermath.
?In closing, what makes this all even tougher for me to swallow is the fact that both Carroll, and the general manager who let that article run on the front page, are not even at the Eagle Times publication anymore,? he said. ?So here I am, still a member of this community and wanting to do my writing and to positively promote the good things around me, and I can?t because none of these publications will currently accept my work. Whereas Mr. Carroll is nowhere to be found.?
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