Andy Thibault joins JRC Connecticut as contributing editor

Longtime Connecticut journalist Andy Thibault will work with Journal Register Company’s publications in Connecticut as a contributing editor.

His focus, to start, will be on investigative reporting projects and Freedom of Information Act matters. He will also work as a writing coach and mentor for newspapers that include the New Haven Register, The Middletown Press and The Register Citizen of Torrington and the weekly Litchfield County Times and West Hartford News.

Longtime Connecticut journalist Andy Thibault will be working with Journal Register Company newspapers in the state. (Walter Kidd photo/Litchfield County Times)

Thibault is a former editor of The Register Citizen and has also worked as an editor at the Hartford Courant, Stamford Advocate, Connecticut Post, Norwich Bulletin and Wilkes-Barre (Pa.) Times Leader.

He is a former commissioner and hearing officer of the Connecticut Freedom of Information Commission, a former Litchfield Board of Education member and one of the main forces behind the Connecticut Young Writers Program. He has taught writing at Western Connecticut State University, Northwestern Connecticut Community College and the University of Hartford, wrote a column for the Connecticut Law Tribune and blogs at http://cooljustice.blogspot.com.

Thibault’s reporting tackled police brutality in Hartford in the early 1990s, the Young & Rubicam “Come Back to Jamaica” kickback scandal, the financial irregularities of the late Commerce Secretary Ron Brown, the cover-up of a hit-and-run death in New London and the 1996 bombing at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta.

He has also worked as a private investigator, is a licensed professional boxing judge, a cancer survivor and the author of several books, including, “History of the Connecticut State Police” in 2003 and “Law & Justice in Everyday Life” in 2002.

Last year, Thibault led a series of free public workshops at The Register Citizen Newsroom Cafe in Torrington on the Freedom of Information Act in Connecticut.

Plagiarism in the Fairfield Minuteman

A story that appeared on the front of the sports section in the print edition of the Jan. 5 Fairfield Minuteman was plagiarized from stories that appeared in two competing newspapers, the Fairfield Citizen and the Connecticut Post.
The story appeared under the headline “Warde Boys Win Prep Classic.”
The first five paragraphs of the story (except for the first three words) were verbatim identical to a Dec. 31 story in the Connecticut Post written by Pat Pickens.
Six of the remaining seven sentences of the story were verbatim identical to a Jan. 3 Fairfield Citizen story by Pickens.
The story, which appeared only in the print edition of the Minuteman, not on its website, appeared under the byline of “Staff Reports,” but was written by Sports Editor Eric Montgomery.
Montgomery is no longer an employee of the Fairfield Minuteman.
Plagiarism violates one of the most basic principles of journalism, and is a clear and unacceptable violation of the policies and standards we embrace at the Fairfield Minuteman.
It is particularly troubling that this happened after a colleague was terminated for plagiarism at a sister publication in Connecticut less than three months ago. After that incident, staff was reminded of the sacred responsibility we have in staying true to journalistic ethics and the grave consequences of violating that trust.

We apologize to Pat Pickens and the editors and staff of the Fairfield Citizen and Connecticut Post.
– Matt DeRienzo, Group Editor, Fairfield Minuteman, mderienzo@journalregister.com