The Harvard Crimson is mired in the controversies of copycat cartoonists, quote cribbing, and an editor who would like to hide in a spiderhole. It's not a good sign for the future of journalism when the editor of an Ivy League paper takes damage-control tips from Saddam Hussein.

You'd think the Harvard kids would have learned their lesson after Kaavya Viswanathan's legendary fall from grace. But, in the past few weeks, plagiarism fever has swept the Crimson. After the firings of writer Victoria Ilyinsky and suspension of cartoonist Kathleen Breeden, reporter Khalid Abdalla writes about software that catches plagiarists by student work to previous works stored on a database -and more than a few staffers are probably wishing they could get their mitts on a trial license.

This Bostonist may be a mere blogger, but, in the interests of proper citation, as you'll see, we're happy to tell you most of our Harvard information comes from The Crimson itself. However, as The Crimson built a reputation for fudging, we get our Harvard news from another, more vigilant source - IvyGateBlog, which is the Gawker of the Ivy League.

When asked why the Ivy League and plagiarism are the new peanut butter and jelly, Chris Beam of Ivy Gate, who recently unmasked himself as a Columbia grad, responded, "We [IvyGateBlog] can't really say if plagiarism is somehow endemic to Harvard or Ivy kids, or if it happens less at other schools, but our guess would be no. Most plagiarism seems to stem from laziness, and smart students are no less prone to laziness than anyone else." Well, this Bostonist feels a little better that the Harvard kids are schlubs like the rest of us.

Beam also looks on the bright side regarding the way the Crimson has treated its errant staffers. IvyGateBlog is "quick to commend the Crimson for sniffing out the Ilyinsky and cartoon incidents, especially since they knew there would be fallout. They know every move they make gets scrutinized, so it's impressive that they've been so transparent in covering their own dealings." (Except maybe when the Crimson editor was searching for a spiderhole.)

To continue the insect metaphor, perhaps plagiarists are like cockroaches. The cockroaches never go away, but if you use the editorial equivalent of extra-strength Raid, then you can cut down on their number. If Beam is right, then perhaps other victims of plagiarists and sloppy writers, like, say, pretty much every single major-market newspaper, could learn something from the Crimson.

Tempting peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich photo from Flickr user Marshed.