Couric: Lying's OK, but plagiarism is bad!

The Washington Post is reporting that that a one-minute Katie Couric commentary on how exciting it was to get her first library card was largely stolen from a Wall Street Journal piece. The star isn't in trouble, but an anonymous producer has been fired.

The weird thing about the story is what the Post's Howard Kurtz delicately calls "the personal flavor of a video -- now removed from the CBS Web site -- that began, 'I still remember when I got my first library card, browsing through the stacks for my favorite books.' "

A CBS spokeswoman says that Couric is "horrified" by the plagiarism.

The spokeswoman doesn't mention whether Couric feels any sense of shame that she apparently routinely passes off a producer's work as her own. Apparently it doesn't bother her that her "first person" essay was piped into her by a producer who sticks a wind-up key in her back. It just bothers her that the producer stole the essay from a third party.