Doctors fear return of Steve Jobs's pancreatic cancer by David Rose, Times of London, January 15th, 2009
In 2003 Mr Jobs learned that he had a malignant tumour in his pancreas - a large gland behind the stomach that supplies the body with insulin and digestive enzymes. The most common type of pancreatic cancer - adenocarcinoma - carries a life expectancy of about a year. Mr Jobs was lucky; he had an extremely rare form called an islet cell neuroendocrine tumour that can be treated surgically, without radiation or chemotherapy.Why Does Steve Jobs Look So Thin? by Philip Elmer-DeWitt, Fortune, June 13th, 2008
Mr Jobs tried various alternative therapies for nine months before the tumour was taken out in July 2004, at the Stanford University Medical Clinic in Palo Alto, near his home. "This weekend I underwent a successful surgery to remove a cancerous tumour from my pancreas," he wrote in an e-mail to Apple's staff the next week.
It is thought that his surgery was a variation on the Whipple procedure in which surgeons typically remove the right-most section, or "head," of the pancreas - as well as the gallbladder, part of the stomach, the lower half of the bile duct and part of the small intestine - and then reassemble the system in a new configuration.
The severed surfaces of the stomach, bile duct, and remaining pancreas are stitched to the small intestine so that what is left of the pancreas can continue to supply insulin and digestive enzymes.
In 2003 Jobs learned that he had a malignant tumor in his pancreas - a large gland behind the stomach that supplies the body with insulin and digestive enzymes. The most common type of pancreatic cancer - adenocarcinoma - carries a life expectancy of about a year. Jobs was lucky; he had an extremely rare form called an islet cell neuroendocrine tumor that can be treated surgically, without radiation or chemotherapy.
As Fortune reported in a March 5 cover story, ("The trouble with Steve Jobs"), Jobs tried various alternative therapies for nine months before the tumor was taken out on July 31, 2004, at the Stanford University Medical Clinic in Palo Alto, near his home.
"This weekend I underwent a successful surgery to remove a cancerous tumor from my pancreas," Jobs wrote in an e-mail to Apple's staff the next week. "I will be recuperating during the month of August, and expect to return to work in September."The Fortune article reported - and Apple has not disputed - that his surgery was a variation on the Whipple procedure, or a pancreatoduodenectomy, the most common operation for pancreatic cancer.
Nobody who has a Whipple is ever quite the same.
The Whipple procedure, named for Allen Oldfather Whipple, the American doctor who perfected it in the 1930s, is a complex, Rube Goldberg-type operation in which surgeons remove the right-most section, or "head," of the pancreas - as well as the gallbladder, part of the stomach, the lower half of the bile duct, and part of the small intestine - and then reassemble the whole thing in a new configuration. The severed surfaces of the stomach, bile duct, and remaining pancreas are stitched to the small intestine so that what's left of the pancreas can continue to supply insulin and digestive enzymes.
I came across this totally randomly--linked to the Elmer-DeWitt account to explain his 9 month dalliance with alternative therapies, then googled for updated news, and thought: "Wait a minute, I've read this somewhere before". It's possible that this is not plagiarism--that David Rose is actually Philip Elmer-DeWitt's alter ego and thus owns the copyright to that passage, or that Mr Rose meant to attribute the passage and the html somehow got screwed up. But it certainly doesn't look good. I've emailed the Times for comment, and will report as I get any information.
Update Mike Harvey emailed to explain.
At least David Rose used The Times style guide to get the appropriate spelling of "tumor."
Megan, ever hear of wire services? Maybe you need to go back to J-school, because the services provide written stories that are then torqued up at the journal that prints the stories. Writers who do the torquing get by-lines by adding to the story, not by writing it. By the way, the entities agree not to sue each other for copyright violations. You simply do not know what plagiarism is. Or how journalism works.
Now everyone can make wholesome, healthy, and delicious meals three times faster....
Re: Bob
I think for your last line you meant "Or how what passes for journalism these days works."
The Fortune article is not a wire story -- it's written by a Fortune staff writer, exclusive to Fortune. You'll note also that Fortune is a Time-Warner property and the Times is a NewsCorp. property, two rivals that do not typically share content.
And were the Times drawing from a wire service, proper attribution would be either to co-credit the author in the byline, or to note at the conclusion that wire copy was used in the story.
No, this looks like a genuine lift.
Wire stories will say something like (AP) or (Reuters) before them.
Unless there's something I'm missing this is a pretty blatant case of plagerism. Hardly anything was changed.
Might not be outright plagiarism, but a case of a lazy writer with a good memory for phrases attempting to phone it in after having Googled a couple stories earlier in the day.
"FDR's line about nothing to fear but fear itself, for example, was lifted from Thoreau, without attribution." I attribute that to the Derb. Or perhaps Joe Biden.
@ aMouseforallSeasons
No way. This was a copy and paste job. You can't get so many words in a row the same even if you are trying to reproduce something from memory.
Right Timmeh! This was a copy and paste job... but with some minor modifications. The "author" was either semiconscious when he turned his research into this story, or else he out-and-out plagiarized.
In the age of the Google, though, how could you do this in the Times and think no one would notice?
Good catch, Megan!
It's not all that common for British newspapers to credit wire services, even if they're copying and pasting large chunks from them. Of 200+ articles I studied on this very subject, only one or two credited additional reporting by a wire service. And yes, many of them were by-lined. If anyone has access to Lexis Nexis, do a text search and see if the lines in question were originally written by someone from AP, Reuters or some such.
The Fortune piece is NOT a wire story. And Bob, you're the one who doesn't know what plagiarism is or how journalism works. Wire stories are supposed to be attributed to the wire.
This is a clear-cut plagiarism and whether it's intentional or not is irrelevant. It's incredibly unprofessional. The Times writer should be fired.
You're right Malcolm, Lexis Nexis search turned up no wire stories with that phrasing. That means either David Rose and Phillip Elmer-DeWitt are the same person, or the former did in fact lift the latter's stuff without attribution.
Not, as far as I can see, a Press Association story (which is the main UK newswire, as AP is in the US).
But no, UK papers do not credit these PA stories, not if they do a mild rewrite on them. Which can be as little as taking out a paragraph or two.
Wow. Looks like the Times article has been rewritten now ... the link above doesn't even resemble the text you quoted, Megan.
Megan, ever hear of wire services? Maybe you need to go back to J-school, because the services provide written stories that are then torqued up at the journal that prints the stories. Writers who do the torquing get by-lines by adding to the story, not by writing it. By the way, the entities agree not to sue each other for copyright violations. You simply do not know what plagiarism is. Or how journalism works.
Irish Nationalists did this all the time. I thought you would know that. Why do you think James Joyce is such a celbrated writer? Why anytime an Irishman doesn't make sense, it should be understood that he is just paraphrasining the Nobel laureate.
Posted by David Rose | January 16, 2009 11:48 AM
Is this the David Rose who wrote the story in The Times or just someone borrowing his name?
ndm:
reread the thread, and i'm sure the joke will come to you.
Did my comment get lost? The one pointing out you were being insufferably precious here, which is pushing it since you couldn't even find out (in your previous post) precisely what sort of cancer Jobs had?
Criticising someone for "plagiarism" when you resort to (a) incomplete fact-checking (b) light censorship of inconveniently contrary opinions really lowers my opinion of you.
The comment from "David Rose" is the funniest thing I've ever seen in a blog comment. Actually, one of the most persuasive things too. A perfect combination of making the point and laughing at the same time. Thanks to whoever posted it.
The scumbag Murdoch will lie, cheat and steal to advance his right-wing agenda, so why shouldn't his employees?
I shouldn't do it since it sort of unmasks the joke, but since it was one of the most complimentary things anyone has ever said about something I wrote, I want to say, "You are welcome, bill shoe."
No matter what the spin, Jobs is dying. No consolation from McArdle's fact-checking.