In her "own" words

Well, here's some more of that legendary CBS News credibility:

"CBS Evening News" anchor Katie Couric may vividly recall her first library card, but the network says she was unaware that her online video essay about the virtues of libraries was largely a work of plagiarism.

CBS News said this week the April 4 installment of "Katie Couric's Notebook" consisted mostly of passages lifted verbatim from a Wall Street Journal column by Jeffrey Zaslow that was published in March.

The producer responsible for Couric's piece was fired on Monday night, hours after the Journal contacted CBS News to complain, network spokeswoman Sandy Genelius said on Tuesday.

The essay was immediately removed from the CBS News Web site, and a correction was posted in its place. The network did not identify the producer who was fired.

Well, at least we know it wasn't Mary Mapes.

Although the text for the minute-long video was written in first person -- introduced by Couric with the line, "I still remember when I got my first library card" -- Couric did not compose the piece herself and was unaware that much of it was plagiarized, Genelius said.

"She was stunned, and very upset," Genelius said on Wednesday. "It's the same reaction we all had."

I guess I'd be upset, too, if I'd been made to look like a fool by going on camera and reading an essay somebody else had written as if it was my own work. Oh, wait, she was doing that anyway. She just didn't realize that it was plagiarized from a third person.

Genelius said Couric met with a group of producers weekly to discuss upcoming topics for her "Notebook" video essays, and "she does write some of them herself."

Well, isn't that special?

(Via Fark.)