I'm sorry, none of what I read seemed very egregious to me. In many cases, I couldn't even decipher whether something had been really plagiarized or not. You DO use lots of material from other people when writing a story-- some of these phrases, especially under tight deadlines and late nights, likely jumble into a mish-mash of words and phrases that might spill out while writing.
Even the case of copying someone else's mistake (in the "10 sportswriters" example) also seems forgivable to me... and- forgive me if I'm too generous- just another mistake, albeit this time on Lehrer's part.
* Lehrer takes copy from previous pieces, sometimes whole paragraphs, and uses them in future pieces. The author is ambivalent about how big a transgression this is, but in 18 pieces he looked at, it was easier to count the ones where Lehrer hadn't obviously recycled copy.
* Lehrer copied multiple paragraphs from a press release directly into his piece. More egregiously, he attributed text from one press release as if it had come from an interview.
* Lehrer plagiariased at least 3 journalists, one of them at pretty extreme length, and another so obviously that he copied mistakes the original journalist had made in the underlying facts.
* When Lehrer was working with actual quotations from sources, he changed them, effectively altering what those people had said.
* Lehrer made numerous factual mistakes, like any pop science writer, but when those mistakes were pointed out to him (including by other journalists), rather than issuing a correction, he ignored the mistakes and then repeated them in future articles.
Even the case of copying someone else's mistake (in the "10 sportswriters" example) also seems forgivable to me... and- forgive me if I'm too generous- just another mistake, albeit this time on Lehrer's part.