New York State Assembly Leader Joe Morelle (D-Rochester) plagiarized large sections of a Comcast press release and the Congressional testimony of Comcast’s executive vice president David Cohen in a letter sent to the New York Public Service Commission endorsing the cable company’s bid to merge with Time Warner Cable.
N.Y. State Assembly Leader Joe Morelle: “The combination of Comcast and Time Warner Cable will create a world-class communications, media and technology company to help meet the increasing consumer demand for advanced digital services on multiple devices in homes, workplaces and on-the-go.”
David Cohen, executive vice-president, Comcast: “The combination of Comcast and TWC will create a world-class communications, media, and technology company to help meet the insatiable consumer demand for advanced digital services on multiple devices in homes, workplaces, and on-the-go.”
Joe Morelle: “Comcast has a proven record of investing in new technologies, facilities and customer support to provide the best in broadband Internet access, video and digital voice services.”
David Cohen: “Comcast has a proven record of investing in new technologies, facilities, and customer support to provide the best in broadband Internet access, video, and digital voice services.”
Joe Morelle: “Similarly, TWC has made significant strides in offering a diverse array of video, broadband, and voice services to its customers.”
David Cohen: “Similarly, TWC has made significant strides in offering a diverse array of video, broadband, and voice services to its customers.”
Joe Morelle: “Combining the two companies’ complementary strengths will accelerate the deployment of next-generation broadband Internet, video and voice services across the new company’s footprint.”
David Cohen: “Combining the two companies’ complementary strengths will accelerate the deployment of next-generation broadband Internet, video, and voice services across the new company’s footprint.”
Joe Morelle: “Residential customers will benefit from technological innovations including a superior video experience, higher broadband speeds and the fastest in-home Wi-Fi, while also generating significant cost savings and other efficiencies.”
Comcast Press Release: “Through this merger, more American consumers will benefit from technological innovations, including a superior video experience, higher broadband speeds, and the fastest in-home Wi-Fi. The transaction also will generate significant cost savings and other efficiencies.”
Joe Morelle: “In just two-and-a-half years, over 350,000 families, representing approximately 1.4 million low-income consumers, have been connected to the Internet thanks to this program. This proposed merger would extend this vital program to many more low-income households in New York by providing access to it in certain areas of the state currently only served by Time Warner.
David Cohen: “In just two and a half years, over 300,000 families, representing some 1.2 million low-income consumers, have been connected to the transformative power of the Internet thanks to this program. The transaction will extend this vital program to millions more Americans in the areas currently served by TWC.”
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I would have been given an F in my high school for that amount of plagiarism, and also put on academic probation. But, that was in the 70’s, when public high schools still had academic standards, and teachers were allowed to use red pens to mark up compositions.
It was also in a situation in which you are expected to present your own ideas and thoughts in your own words, for the purpose of educating you to do so. Plagiarism defeats the whole purpose of education.
In this situation, it may be misleading and definitely revealing, but I don’t know how dishonest it is.
Then again, had you been in office back in the 1970’s you could have gotten away with it even then! I was in High School in the late 70’s too and it was driven home time and again copying was wrong and yes, the red pen was often used on my tests. Of course we did not have resources like the Internet. You were limited to encyclopedia’s and various reference books which were easy enough to check for copying so you had to be original (or pretty damn close).
I live in Joe’s district…Time Warner services the Greater Rochester area (and the word “service” is a euphemism). I know I’m not the only one who has been on the phone for 1+ hours trying to speak with a human, and then finding you are dealing with rude, lying customer service reps. No one has recorded exchanges with TW yet, but you can bet it’s the same as Comcast. Merging two notoriously terrible and customer-abusing monopolies is something NO ONE in this area wants – but who cares about one’s constituency, right? However, we do have an another option –… Read more »
While I think it’s great that Greenlight Networks is finally stepping in where some competition is desperately needed, sadly their efforts are not widespread and very slow to expand. I would choose Greenlight Networks in a heartbeat if they offered it in my area, I’m pretty sure I would not be the only one either. But, having to go through a petition signing campaign just to get Greenlight interested in building their network into my neighborhood seems like quite an effort, and I simply do not have the extra time to dedicate to such a task.