Hunter Forgets Quote Marks, Cribs Editorial from Wall Street Journal

Madison Daily Leader publisher Jon Hunter caught heck from Lakota authors a couple weeks back for not citing sources to back his arguments about economic conditions on the reservations. He might catch heck this week for not citing the source of his current editorial.

Hunter evidently reads the Wall Street Journal. His latest editorial, arguing for delaying the minimum wage increase scheduled for July 24, echoes David Neumark's op-ed from last Friday's WSJ... perhaps a little too closely.

Jon Hunter, "Last Phase of Minimum Wage Increase Should Be Delayed," Madison Daily Leader, 2009.06.15	David Neumark, "Delay the Minimum-Wage Hike," Wall Street Journal, 2009.06.12
The best estimates from studies in the last two decades indicate that the upcoming 11 percent increase in the minimum wage will lead to the loss of an additional 300,000 jobs among teens and young adults, on top of previous job losses.	The best estimates from studies since the early 1990s suggest that the 11% minimum wage increase scheduled for this summer will lead to the loss of an additional 300,000 jobs among teens and young adults. This is on top of the continuing job losses the recession is likely to throw our way.

Eeesh—that's too close for my comfort.

I know space is tight for Mr. Hunter's editorials. He embraces bloggy brevity, rarely developing his opinions beyond a couple hundred words so as not to crowd out the garden club news and other localia. But citing sources takes only one line. Online, it takes even less: you can cite with a hyperlink and tuck the author, title, and date in an HTML title attribute that will show only when people hover their mouse over it.

Hunter has previously critiqued online media for being unedited and lacking integrity. I would suggest that citing sources, particularly from colleagues in the newspaper business, is one of the "basic principles of what it takes to do a writer's job well" [Jon Hunter, "Halberstam's Attention to Detail Could Be Used Today," Madison Daily Leader, 2007.04.24].