That same week, the Los Gatos Daily News ran a front-page apology to SVCN's Los Gatos Weekly-Times for running stories it had lifted from them.

A week later, Newsweek wrote about Stephen Glass, who five years earlier was fired from The New Republic for outright fabrication of some pretty outrageous stories—stories that The New Republic published. Glass, no doubt following the old adage about writing what you know, is about to publish his first novel, The Fabulist, a story about a journalist who invents stories.

I would like to think these extreme examples won't reinforce the opinion of the many who believe journalists are unreliable and untrustworthy. But it's hard to imagine such carryings on—especially at a newspaper with the reputation of The New York Times— could help. During his nightly review of the front pages of the next day's newspapers, CNN's Aaron Brown could hardly disguise his contempt as he held up the next day's New York Times on the day the plagiarism story broke, and, glancing at its famous slogan on the top left corner, said, "Yeah ... all the news that's fit to print."

Those of us who love journalism feel betrayed that the best of the best has let us down.

More than once, an irate reader, angry that one of our community newspapers had unflinchingly taken on a controversial topic, has yelled at me: "Who do you think you are, The New York Times?"

The suggestion being that a weekly newspaper with a local community focus isn't in the same league with a big national newspaper. Well, it's true that in terms of size and coverage, SVCN's papers are not in the same league. But in terms of high ethical standards and a commitment to fair and accurate coverage, SVCN bows to no one. And just maybe there are times we can hold our heads high when big, respected publications really have forfeited that right.

That a respected newspaper or magazine could be duped—not once but repeatedly by a reporter who fabricated stories, filed stories from the field without leaving home or simply passed off someone else's work as his own is disheartening to those of us who believe that journalism is a high calling, a career whose raison d'être is nothing short of safeguarding democracy.

I was once accused of plagiarism. It happened in a high school history class, and I was mortified when the teacher returned a paper insisting that I was guilty of plagiarism. I don't remember what the paper was about, but I do remember the phrase that sent the teacher scurrying to the library to make her case. I had written that something or other was "a tough nut to crack." Either she knew that wasn't a phrase a high school student was likely to use, or more likely, she knew all the reference materials backwards and forward. There were other phrases—perhaps whole sentences—that I picked out of reference materials—not to be deceitful, but because I really thought it was OK, so long as I mixed all the borrowed phrases up.

My point is that it's understandable for a high school student to be unclear on the fine points of plagiarism. Spending a spring weekend rewriting a paper to avoid a failing grade was all the penance I needed to learn my lesson. One would think these journalists would have learned such lessons in school themselves. Perhaps, though, the problem was that their editors assumed it, too. The two young writers at The New York Times and The New Republic were considered rising stars. Maybe their editors were blinded by the stars and forgot to be vigilant.

Disappointed as I am in the failure of The New York Times, a newspaper that I curl up with every Sunday morning for hours on end, I'm much too superstitious to cast stones. All I can do is hope that none of our editors is ever in too much of a hurry to pay careful attention or that our system of reading and rereading and "one more look with another set of eyes" won't fail us.

At the Los Gatos Daily News, their system failed when a young writer picked up short articles from the Weekly-Times and ran them almost verbatim. That writer's "tough nut to crack" was picking up a sports story in which we had made an error. Instead of putting the proper contact phone number, we ran the phone number of the Weekly-Times office. When that error showed up in the Daily News, we started looking more closely, and it became clear that the writer was plagiarizing our stories.

Putting out a news publication is certainly more art than science. Every day reporters and editors must make judgment calls, must balance many perspectives and try to come out with stories that are fair. SVCN is delighted to have launched its seventh community newspaper. It would have been nice if the waters hadn't been made murky by those we in the business hold in high esteem.

Dale Bryant is the executive editor of Silicon Valley Community Newspapers and editor of the Rose Garden Resident. She can be reached at 408.200.1021 or dbryant@svcn.com.