Everett Herald says sports columnist lifted passages from SI

you can't grasp the distinction?
i didn't advocate for her firing.
get it?

 

I feel for the guy if this is just one mistake that an otherwise great person made. But this is a fireable offense.

 

I grasp the difference just fine. Just happen to think you're full of shit and for some reason can't leave you alone to be wrong by yourself. That's probably because you've not posted a word of value here, instead offering snarky one-line retorts, which is a pretty good sign you have nothing of substance to add. But you've got good karma, which is nice. I hope your good works are extended to the community at large -- food banks, teaching illiterate adults how to read -- and are not saved only for guys struggling with ethical issues.

All pissing matches aside, I really hope Sleeper gets on his feet and does well.

 

Hope you can live with the karma, maaaaaaan.

 

Anybody know if Reilly embellished some of the details in his column? I've always taken his columns with a grain of salt because the quotes and circumstances were a little too cute and perfect as well. But I guess its original so its okay.

 

henryhenry,

I understand and agree with your argument that there should be some thought, consideration and compassion involved when dealing with ethical issues and disciplinary cases involving individual people.

I even can agree that there may be worse things -- at least as far as the societal/outside impact on the industry, its image and it trustworthiness -- than lifting another writer's work and passing it off as your own.

Such a thing is more of a, shall we say, cannibalistic, or, in-house, sort of offense, than, say, fabricating facts or stories, or not doing due reporting diligence as far as checking up on sources' or documents' authenticy, or acting with malicious intent to harm or discredit another.

But, this is still a fire-able offense.

And the reason is much the same as it would be if Sleeper had committed any of those other offenses you cited: Simply put, he cannot be trusted.

It is that trust -- of his editors, the paper, and the readers -- that has been violated, even more so than any hard/fast journalistic rule. Does that help?

Because this is really that simple, that deep, that sad.

And, yes, that bad.

 

fire-able, sure. but not humane.

easy for you to say fire the guy - you aren't the one doing the firing. the person who flips the switch will have to live with it. putting a guy out of work - taking his livelihood - hurting his family - not things i'd want to take to bed at night.


suspension is more appropriate. make him write a public apology.

your comments about 'trust' sound like hollow rhetoric - academic and boilerplate. if you can trust the guy for 20 years - and he earned it - then one aberrant incident should not destroy it.

 

Unless it's the Freep and the subject matter is the NBA...

 

hh,

You sure stick to your guns on this issue, I'll give you that.

And, really, in a time when people are losing jobs in the business left and right for no reason at all, we are supposed to wring our hands over a plagiarist getting fired?

He might be a good guy and all who made a mistake, but people who have done nothing at all wrong are getting the axe.

So, really, it wouldn't bother me in the slighest to pull the trigger.

Hey, if you have nothing at all to write about, call in sick or something.

 

If I am the one firing Sleeper, I am not the one who took his livelihood and hurt his family. He did. He committed the cardinal sin of journalism.

 

Here's what I'm not getting: Extrapolating your argument -- have a little compassion, he has a family, it's his livelihood, he has a good track record -- basically you're implying (to me, at least) he could have done just about anything as long as it was an aberration and not repeated behavior.

So where does that stop? Making up facts? Quoting nonexistent people?

Sorry, Henry: There HAS to be a line in there somewhere.

Picking up a factual paragraph from a feature that's source material for a new feature you're writing? To me, for somebody with a good track record, that's this side of the line (and there will be those here who disagree with me about that).

Lifting several paragraphs of one well-known columnist's anecdotal writing and passing it off as your own creative work? That's the other side of the line.

All judgment, of course. But to me, in this case, it's clear.

 

Only began reading this thread this morning, now that it's well into five pages. Couple of reactions:

-- Heard of a writer from a metro paper who lifted a big chunk of an editorial from another source. Guy said he suffered from alcoholism, so paper allowed him to do rehab rather than firing him. Then it examined past work and found another example of same thievery. Don't think it canned him then, either. My hunch is, you're more likely to get fired if you steal from a well-known place (Rick Reilly!) or if you're caught by a reader rather than by someone on your own staff or even by someone else in the business.

-- Find it kind of charming that we have this capital offense in our business, grounded in trust between reporters and editors and between the paper and the public. Yet do the people that own and run newspapers have any similar capital offense? What -- besides actual criminal behaviors like sexual harrassment and embezzlement -- "codes" must department heads or MEs or publishers heed, at the risk of losing their jobs?

Not absolving the Everett guy in any way, shape or form. Just find it ... I'll say it again: charming ... that we almost universally adhere to this code and yet we work for people who are violating their trusts with staffers and with readers on a daily basis. They aren't giving the public the best damn journalism possible, they're giving what they can afford to do and they're giving what they think will make the paper/Web site more, er, popular.

Reaffirms for me, I guess, that I'll take my chances with the ethics, values and standards of those at our end of the business, because we still have a code and a few lines that cannot be crossed. The other end, hell, they start erasing today's line as soon as they start drawing tomorrow's.

Maybe I'm neglecting something, so please instruct me: What is a fireable offense for a section head? A newsroom leader? A publisher? (Specific to their jobs or journalism, that is.)