Caroline Mutoko busted in plagiarism scandal
We told you @RobertAlai was one of the most influential Kenyans on twitter. Well guess what his keen eye discovered earlier today.
Caroline Mutoko’s popular column “Mutoko on Monday” is her forum to write a weekly piece on whichever topic she chooses. Last Monday, (3rd September 2012) Caroline wrote a letter to her 20-year-old self. All this seemed to have been inspired by the recent “Campus Divas For Rich Men” facebook scandal. Read the Nairobi Star article here.
(UPDATE: The Nairobi Star deleted Caroline’s article, but read the cached copy here.)
Well, in reading the article a few commenters noted that it was plagiarised. So, today, it was broadcast by one Robert Alai, that said ‘inspiring letter to my 20-year-old self” was actually lifted word for word off another article published late last year (17th October 2011) on a blog going by “The Crunk Feminist Collection”. He provided the link to the original article on his twitter page. Read the article here.
Wow. Compare and contrast. Seems to me that Caroline’s ‘heartfelt letter’ was ACTUALLY copied word for word from the other blog. Coincidence or plagiarism?
As of half an hour ago this morning (11th September 2012) the hashtags #CarolineMutoko and #MutokoMonday were frequently appearing on KOTs timelines. Some KOTs seem outraged, others fairly tickled by the blatant plagiarism in this article. Sample some of the tweets/retweets:
Miss #CarolineMutoko plagiarizes an article. Is she not the one who told@koinangejeff that we should not be ‘AVERAGE?’ #MutokoOnMonday
Let he who has never copy pasted cast the first stone #carolinemutoko vs#googlegeneration
#CarolineMutoko must have made some egotistical assumptions re the stupidity of her readership. #FireMutoko cc: @TheStarKenya
The Internet never forgets. #CarolineMutoko
Hehe “@tizomu i will #CarolineMutoko your assignment?!»
Wow. This is quite embarrassing for a mentor of Caroline Mutoko’s calibre. All she had to do was quote a source. *sigh* Lets watch and see if this escalates into full on tweef, or if it just fades away into anonymity.
