Student sportswriter fired for plagiarism

So Rose continued to make the same mistake over and over again because they were lenient on him, and now you're arguing that plagiarists should also get leniency so they can make the same mistake over and over again while eroding the profession?

Seems to me you made the opposite point you were attempting to make. Well done.

 

If anyone ever rips you off, you'll know by their lack of capital letters. I'm just saying, in journalism, this is Rule No.1.

 

i'm saying that if MLB can give rose third and fourth and fifth chances for violating its cardinal rule, then a young college student making his first mistake deserves a second chance without being publicly disgraced and beheaded.

you all prove my point.

you're probably decent people in your community and to your friends and families.

but when it comes to plagiarism you turn into murderous fascists. fucking nazis.

once again...where is the compassion? and perspective?

 

Won't somebody think of the children?

 

When I was a sports editor in college, we caught one of my writers stealing quotes from an online press release on the men's lacrosse team. He did not think it was stealing. Boy, did I want to kick his ass. We didn't run anything in the paper, but we notified the school's SID staff what we had discovered, apologized and vowed to ensure it wouldn't happen again.

Maybe if the guy actually covered the games he was supposed to be covering, he wouldn't have had to plagiarize.

 

???

 

Rose should have been banned for life the instant credible evidence of his betting on baseball came to light.

Same thing with plagiarists. Strike one-two-three, you're gone.

Baseball players betting on baseball and journalists plagiarizing are just about the same thing. It's something you never, ever, ever do.

It's comparing apples and bowling balls. MLB does not decide on punishment for plagiarism; professional journalists do not have final say whether Pete Rose is suspended from baseball or not.

 

That's what I was going to add.
Plagiarism = stealing.
Stealing = wrong
How hard is this?
Dude screwed up and had to answer to the consequences.

 

I have no compassion for anyone who steals someone else's work and claims it as his own. Or her own.

That's something any self-respecting person should learn early on, even before hitting the ranks of a college newspaper.

He had it coming, plain and simple.

 

As an editor at a college paper (like Apex, also not an EIC), it's still something we take very seriously --- even if it is supposed to be a learning environment.

The bottom line is that plagiarism is unacceptable at any level, even college. Sure, it's a place to learn --- you're allowed to make mistakes: Forgot the game was on a Friday? OK, it happens. You have a cliche lede? Fine, we'll fix it. AP style's awful? Here, read this. Difficulty with a deadline? We'll try to get you some more time.

But plagiarism? That's not a mistake --- it's basically an INTENTIONAL mess-up. If you didn't know what you were doing was wrong, then you don't DESERVE to be in journalism. Period.

We may be college kids, but like Apex, I can say it's something we obviously take very seriously. Plagiarism still undermines our credibility as a publication, and it's not something that should be tolerated AT ANY LEVEL.

In case you're wondering, we have had a few ethical quandaries --- and one plagiarism case --- in the last three years. We fired him and ran an apology to our readers. I can't imagine keeping the columnist, I think the staff writers would've killed him otherwise.

I know I would've ...

 

Just to add to that:

You go to a school like the University of Virginia, which at least used to have an honor code, you get kicked out of school for stealing/cheating. Hell, you're going to be in deep shit for plagiarizing in any class at any school ... Why should journalism be more lenient? Trust me, most kids learn in high school that plagiarizing is bad. There's no excuses at any level.

 

I'm still wondering the need to plagarize. I went from a daily to a web-only medium and while I have used quotes from other stories, I always attribute the paper, the writer and the day that the story ran, so that I make sure that it's not construed as plagarism. I do this with commentaries from time to time. With the web, formatting can be slightly different than a broadsheet design, but the rules still exist.

I'm not going to say "I always attribute," because that's what you're supposed to do!

That's just one particular area, but when straight up lifting content, that's really raising an eyebrow. But I'm speaking to the choir here.