Reader Vincent Meyer recently contacted me to say we’d copied an Aviation Mentor web article published by John Ewing, titled “Flying in the Raw.”
Small World
Aviation is a small world; there are a limited number of topics on which one can write. Additionally, journalism is a specific enough trade that when you combine it with aviation, you have a very small world indeed. Thus, its inevitable that there occur certain overlaps and (gasp!) even certain duplications. Granted, this one innocently went too far, but just how many unique articles can be written about a single, odd approach without covering the same ground?
Key Takeaways:
- An article by Jeff Van West was accused of being copied from John Ewing's "Flying in the Raw" due to its similar content about a unique aviation approach and an almost identical title.
- Investigation revealed that Van West had independently noted the unique approach as an article idea, resulting in original prose but an accidental duplication of the catchy title.
- The magazine apologized to John Ewing, who accepted and will now contribute to their publication, prompting the author to reflect on the inevitability of topical overlap in niche aviation journalism.
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