Chris Powell, managing editor of the Journal Inquirer, is scheduled to appear Wednesday on John Dankosky’s “Where We Live” program to talk about newspaper ethics and the JI’s suit charging the Courant with plagiarism.

I hope he takes a minute or two to address his suit’s incorrect claim that one of former reporter Larry Smith’s stories were plagiarized from the JI. Larry needs the record to be clear that he did his own reporting and writing.

I think the promo above also says Chris will be talking about the pressures of running a local, family-owned newspaper.

One of those pressures — namely, that the Courant had a longstanding practice of hiring away Powell’s best journalists — is at least partly the reason the JI’s leader is so determined not to let the bigger paper get away with stealing his stories.

I can’t tell you how many of the JI’s writers, editors and photographers were broken in by Powell and his No. 2 man, Bob Boone, only to have them plucked away by The Courant. I can give you a short list, however, starting with me. Here are some others I recall off the top of my head: Steve Grant, Mark Pazniokas, Michael Kodas, Bill Keveny, Bob Vacon, Lyn Bixby, Larry Williams, Bob Conrad, Patricia McNerney. The JI could not compete with Courant salaries, nor was there as much advancement opportunity at the small operation.

Chris eventually adopted the policy of terminating instantly any employee who announced he was leaving to work for The Courant. No two-week notice necessary. Just get out. Traitors not welcome. He seemed to take it personally. As if we had kicked the little dog he kept under his desk.

No wonder he was hacked when he saw his reporters’ work appearing in the competition at virtually no cost to the Courant save the efforts of a hapless copy editor. (The Courant, by the way, did that re-write guy no favors by leaving him stuck with the named credit for the misappropriated stories. Punishing him later was completely unfair. The company should be compensating him for the damage to his career it guided him to.)

With such a history, who can blame the JI for wanting its pound of flesh?