The body of work produced by former Iowa State Daily staff writer Daniel C. Hartman is a glimpse into the highs and lows of journalism.

On one side, there is the entertainment writer whose story on Texas band Back Porch Mary is still kept in the group’s press kit and whose article on Ames band The Nadas was praised by lead singer Jason Walsmith as having “better quotation than a lot of college newspapers.”

The other side, however, shows a man struggling with honesty, even before he was fired for plagiarism. Iowa State Daily editors confirmed March 11 that Hartman had plagiarized eight of his articles — movie reviews written near the end of his tenure at the paper.

An April 6, 2000, Daily article reports Hartman used a falsified Iowa State University academic degree while attempting to secure a job in Ames.

Hartman, then 35 and not yet a student at the university, denied the charges, but later pleaded guilty and was fined for the infraction.

Later that year, Hartman was accused of altering the amount of a paycheck from car retailer Dewey Ford from $164 to $964. He then cashed the check at Mr. Money. Hartman admitted his actions to his employers and promised to pay back the money, but didn’t. A warrant was issued for his arrest Nov. 8, 2000. He was originally charged with forgery, a Class D felony, but ultimately pleaded guilty to an aggravated misdemeanor.

Hartman was sentenced to two years of probation and was ordered to receive mental health counseling at the Richmond Center, 125 S. 3rd St., Suite 200.

“Mr. Hartman has made real progress at addressing that problem area of his life through counseling and medication,” read the probation release paper, signed by Robert Build and Mike DiBlasi, Hartman’s probation officers. “He appears to be very stable at this time.”

Band members question accuracy

Hartman wrote about 45 articles during his six months as a Daily employee. During his time at the paper — from Sept. 12, 2003, until he was dismissed — he’d written 37 articles besides those found to have been plagiarized. Many of these were focused on local and national entertainment acts.

Hartman had, in his time at the Daily, been assigned by his editors to cover acts ranging from the local Theatre of Mass Destruction to the national group Bastard Sons of Johnny Cash.

An Iowa State Daily investigation found many of the live sources quoted in Hartman’s work said they felt the information in Hartman’s articles was genuine and satisfactory. But aberrations do occur.

Solomon Bales, lead singer of the central Iowa band Only, called Daily Arts and Entertainment Editor Aaron Ladage days after a story about the band was featured in the March 4 edition of the Daily. Bales alleged the story contained gross inaccuracies, attribution mistakes and fabrications.

The story’s second paragraph quotes Bales describing a show that took place at a Clinton-area bar. The quote, dealing with the bar’s decision not to sell pitchers or mugs on weekend nights because of the customers’ habit of throwing them, ended with Bales saying, “Needless to say, it was not our finest hour.”

That sentence, Bales said, changes the entire meaning of the quotation — and Bales said he never said the phrase to Hartman, whom he feels misrepresented him.

Hartman also quoted Bales as saying, “Me, I’m a huge Henry Rollins fan.” Bales said he only admitted to Hartman that he liked the former Black Flag frontman, and said Hartman had fabricated the quotation.

Bales also accused Hartman of including his own interview questions in quotes. In the story, Bales is quoted: “That, to me, is what separates Only from the other local bands that have come out of Des Moines lately. We aren’t just locked into one style. If you do that, you’ll find yourself not finding gigs when that musical fad ends.”

Bales said Hartman had asked him what separated Only from other bands, and he’d responded there was no real defining separation. The rest of the quote — which Bales said didn’t reflect his views, due to his respect for other Des Moines bands — was completely fabricated, he said.

So much of the story was inaccurate, Bales said, he felt even a correction would not be able to help by the time it could run the following Monday.

There are other instances in which the authenticity of Hartman’s work falls into question. In a story about Texas-based Charlie Robison, who could not be reached for comment, Hartman quotes the singer as saying, “My brother Bruce wrote the song ‘Anything Might Happen Tonight’ … I always tell this long story before the song, and I really wanted to keep that in there.”

The quote appears nearly word-for-word in Robison’s biography at http://www.charlierobison.net/Biography.html, with only the words “the song” omitted.

The same situation appears in an Oct. 7, 2003, article about the Bastard Sons of Johnny Cash, in which this quote appears, attributed to singer Mark Stuart:

“I never set out to make a strict country record,” Stuart says. “The idea on the last one was to go in and make a traditional record in the spirit of the outlaw classics by Waylon [Jennings], Willie [Nelson] and Kris [Kristofferson].”

The same quote appears nearly word-for-word, with the omission of the editor-added bracketed names, in the third paragraph of the group’s biography at http://www.bsojc.com/bio.htm.

Staffer fired for plagiarism

Daily editors learned from an ISU alumna and former Daily employee March 9 that Hartman had plagiarized a film review from the Minneapolis Star Tribune. After Daily editors examined his work and discovered eight instances of plagiarism, Hartman was fired that evening. After two days of discussions, the editors decided on a course of action for informing Daily readers. An article including Hartman’s name and an explanation appeared in the March 11 Daily.

The editors — Ladage, Editor in Chief Nicole Paseka and Managing Editor of Content and Development Lucas Grundmeier — said Hartman didn’t respond well to their decision.

“I am glad my parents are not here to have to see this,” Hartman wrote in an e-mail to Paseka, Ladage and Mark Witherspoon, the Daily’s adviser, the day before the article detailing his dismissal was published on the front page. “I hope my 36 other stories haunt you and that you like playing God.”

This e-mail, in addition to what Ladage called a “cryptic phone call” from Hartman, motivated Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication officials to notify Iowa State’s Department of Public Safety out of concern for Daily employees and for Hartman himself.

For his part, Hartman admits his fault, saying that he’d explained his actions, and the reasons for them, to as many people as he felt warranted it.

“I had problems writing them like I thought my editor wanted me to write them, and I took the easy way out for a variety of reasons, for reasons that other people know,” Hartman said. “And I took the wrong course.”

Not as wrong, he said, as some other infamous journalists.

“The difference between me and Jayson Blair is that he blatantly made things up,” he said. “I didn’t. I borrowed from other sources. There’s a big difference.”

Daily considers hiring practices

“It’s one of the cardinal sins of journalism,” Witherspoon said of plagiarism. It was a sentiment that was also mentioned in the first paragraph of the Daily’s March 11 story about Hartman.

“It has to do with credibility of the publication,” Witherspoon said. “Students need to learn that plagiarism destroys your reputation. And that is fatal in the journalism industry.”

Both Witherspoon and Grundmeier, the Daily editor in chief for summer 2004 through spring 2005, are considering the future in light of Hartman’s actions. Hartman was hired without any check of his criminal history, and he successfully plagiarized articles for several months before a reader noticed the problem.

Hartman’s wasn’t the first case of plagiarism in Daily history. Witherspoon, the Daily’s adviser since 1999 and lecturer in journalism and communication, said there have been two or three in the Daily’s recent history. But no methods have yet been developed to actively combat the problem.

“I think we need to look at our hiring process, but you have to understand, we are a student publication, and one of our critical missions is to teach journalism,” Witherspoon said. “And the other thing that’s important to me is that this is a land-grant institution. Part of our philosophy is that we will take anyone and teach them journalism.”

Grundmeier said future measures against plagiarism and fabrication are still undecided.

“That’s still up in the air,” he said. “Obviously, this points out that this person got by us because we do not have strict checks on employees. With that said, two things are concerning about looking deep into people’s background. The first is practicality. We have a lot of people that come through our door.”

The Daily’s employment system is constructed to allow any student to work at the newspaper for as long as that student wishes.

The other problem, Grundmeier said, is the Daily’s role as an educational device. The problem, then, becomes weighing a student’s right to work and learn at the paper against the paper’s right to be certain of the professionalism of its reporters.

Grundmeier said, in past times, the former was the more important to him.

“That definitely would have been my attitude before this spring,” he said. “And that will remain my presumption, certainly. I don’t think you can ever be certain, whatever restrictions you have, that you’re not going to run into problems.”

Looking toward the future

Despite his actions earlier this year, Hartman said he still feels his future will include work in the field of journalism.

“I’ll work through it,” he said. “The Daily’s not the only game in town.”

Witherspoon said Hartman’s future in journalism is not necessarily closed simply because of his indiscretions.

“That’s the wonderful thing,” said Witherspoon, who said he’s spoken with Hartman several times since he was fired from the Daily.

“If you’re going to plagiarize, do it as a student and learn your lesson. He’s got many years ahead of him. He’s a promising young journalist, and he’s definitely learned his lesson. I sincerely doubt he’ll ever do this again.”