Coulter a Cribber? Company: No. Expert: Yuh-huh.

Editor & Publisher reports:

Universal Press Syndicate said today that it doesn’t think controversial columnist Ann Coulter is guilty of plagiarism.

When reached for reaction to Universal’s statement, the head of the company the New York Post asked to investigate the alleged plagiarism said of some of Coulter’s work: “It is uncited, it is unoriginal, and it does look like plagiarism.” But iParadigms CEO John Barrie emphasized that it’s up to Coulter’s syndicate and book publisher to accept or ignore his company’s findings. “Our technology is not designed to make those judgment calls,” he said of the iThenticate system.

n a statement sent to E&P, Universal President and Editor Lee Salem said: “Last week a software program company official ran Ann Coulter’s columns through a ‘match-text’ program, frequently used by teachers to detect original work. . . .

“Like her book publisher, Crown, Universal Press Syndicate finds no merits to the allegations of plagiarism brought by the software company executive. There are only so many ways you can rewrite a fact and minimal matching text is not plagiarism. ”

. . . .

Barrie told E&P that Coulter’s work might have been more a case of “textbook plagiarism” than some other writers — including Michael Olesker of The Sun in Baltimore — who lost their jobs amid plagiarism charges. “It’s definitely not any less serious than Michael Olesker’s situation,” he said.