Radio-Canada does not intend to withdraw Laurent Turcot from its airwaves, even if the latter has been the subject of a new investigation for plagiarism. As for his publisher, he vigorously defends the rigor of the star historian.
The Journal of Montreal revealed on Wednesday that the University of Quebec at Trois-Rivières (UQTR), where he teaches, recently conducted an investigation into nearly 120 cases of alleged plagiarism in various works by Laurent Turcot. The university had already criticized him in the fall of 2021 for having taken almost word for word passages from other books, without citing their provenance, in his work. Sports and leisure: a history of the origins nowadays published in 2016.
But despite everything, Radio-Canada maintains “for the moment” its collaboration with the historian, who notably hosts the podcast history buff on the OHdio platform, in addition to being a regular guest on television and radio. He has also been at the helm since December of a new show on the Explora channel, The crazy history of medicine, whose filming has been completed since the fall.
bona fide error
In recent years, Laurent Turcot has become a familiar face in Quebec by appearing on several forums where he is called upon to popularize various historical events. He also has his own YouTube channel, History will tell us, which has more than 400,000 subscribers.
In a brief exchange with The dutythe historian insisted on defending his reputation following the article in the Montreal Journalcategorically denying having deliberately misused passages from elsewhere in the literature.
“Even when doing rigorous work, no one is immune to an error or omission in good faith. As an author, I have the utmost respect for my sources. To facilitate the reading of some of my historical popularization books, my publisher and I have chosen to limit the use of quotation marks, which can make reading difficult,” he reiterated.
Last spring, when he was singled out for the first time for plagiarism by the UQTR, he provided similar explanations. Laurent Turcot had indicated that his publisher at the time, Gallimard, had asked him to clean up the book, which would explain why certain references were missing. If the UQTR had concluded that it was plagiarism, Laurent Turcot had not however been sanctioned.
Who inspired who?
However, this time, the alleged cases of plagiarism are not limited to a single work. Several of his books are mentioned, in particular History will tell us, released in April and inspired by videos from his YouTube channel of the same name. Certain passages seem to have been taken straight from websites, such as the Canadian Encyclopedia or Universalis, without this being indicated.
The publisher of the historian’s latest book, Hurtubise, took up his defense by recalling that the sources on these sites are often not mentioned either. “The book itself is drawn from his course notes and capsules. There is nothing to say that these are not the sites that were inspired by the YouTube capsules of History will tell us. […] In our view, the book still has great value and is methodologically flawless,” said Arnaud Foulon, vice-president of Hurtubise.
The UQTR did not want to comment on the new investigation, but The Journal of Montreal reports that it would have ended this fall. Impossible to know on the other hand if Laurent Turcot was sanctioned this time. “Management is continuing to work on this file,” the university said simply.