Paper's plagiarism explanation sounds fishy

An editorial writer at the Minneapolis Star-Tribune lifted part of an editorial from a New Yorker article. In explaining how the plagiarism occurred, Susan Albright, the paper's editorial page editor, wrote that the unnamed writer "took notes" on a piece by Hendrik Hertzberg "intending either to directly quote him or otherwise include some of his views" but "later, in consulting these notes, the writer inadvertently failed to distinguish which parts were direct quotes and which were paraphrased ideas". Took notes? Can she be serious? Did the miscreant really take notes in these days of copy-and-paste? Sounds fishy to me. (Via Editor & Publisher)