According to Poynter David Simpson has resigned from his contract position at the Urban Tulsa. According to the paper’s creative director, the second plagiarized cartoon went to press before the issue of originality came to light.
In a separate post on Poynter, the paper’s publisher plans to respond to the accusations of plagiarism in the next issue and the response will also be posted online tomorrow.
UPDATE: There is a question of whether Simpson resigned or was fired. Poynter, whom I cited above, says that he resigned. I have a close, reliable source that informs me that he was fired.
I hope they take this opportunity to spend their money on somebody who can really offer something unique to the paper.
There are many people out there to choose from.
He was fired. So was every official from every presidential administration who offered their resignation. It’s worded that way for public consumption to pretend there’s more dignity involved than there really is.
Sometimes a “resignation” also involves a bit of file cleansing on both sides. “If you choose to resign …” can be a powerful bargaining chip, depending on what potential skeletons — real or dredged up for the occasion — are lurking.
In this case, of course, since he was contract and not an employee, and because the alternative would have been to be fired for cause, collecting unemployment was never on the table. But, as Matt observes, it’s so much nicer to resign, and makes it so much easier to get the next job!