Not all plagiarists are journalists. And, despite what you may have heard lately, not all journalists are plagiarists.This week Canadians are talking about allegations of plagiarism against Globe and Mail columnist Margaret Wente. Today, we want to talk about this and about the Globe's response, which some are saying has been almost as bad as the allegations themselves.

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Margaret Wente: Plagiarism Allegations - Panel

When you make your living with words, being called a plagiarist can put a quick end to a writer's career. A columnist at the Globe and Mail is accused of plagiarism, and while the newspaper says it's disciplined Margaret Wente, it won't say exactly how.

Wente admits not all the words that appeared in a July 2009 column were her own and she admits to extreme carelessness. There are calls for the newspaper to sack Wente -- but crabby readers are always demanding the termination of columnists. Does the accusation of word theft make this case different?

To give us some perspective on this controversy, we were joined by Ivor Shapiro, the Chair of the Ryerson School of Journalism and chair of the Ethics Advisory Committee of the Canadian Association of Journalists. He was in Toronto.

And Romayne Smith Fullerton teaches in the Faculty of Information and Media Studies at the University of Western Ontario. She's the ethics editor at J-Source - The Canadian Journalism Project. And she was in London, Ontario.

We invited Margaret Wente and John Stackhouse to participate, neither responded.

But here is Margaret Wente's column and the John Stackhouse memo published in the Globe and Mail.

Margaret Wente was also heard regularly on CBC Radio One. She was a member of the media panel on Q, the program that immediately follows The Current. Yesterday, Q announced it's suspending Margaret Wente from the panel.

This segment was produced by The Current's Howard Goldenthal, Ben Edwards and Joan Piloya.

Other segments from today's show:

China's Bid for Nexen: Should Canada be willing to sell?

My Leaky Body: Julie Devaney