Everett Herald says sports columnist lifted passages from SI

I don't want to quibble here because obviously they're both inexcusable, but how is one any worse than the other? Blair made stuff up out of whole cloth, but at least the writing was his. Sleeper didn't make up the facts, he stole them, along with someone else's writing. I don't see where his offense is any less objectionable than Blair's.

 

Just a matter of personal preference, I suppose. To me, Sleeper is worse. He appears to have written about something that didn't happen AND he stole it. Blair's was done with more chutzpah in some ways, but cribbing the SI face guy takes -- how did somebody put it earlier? -- balls the size of church bells.

 

But stealing "facts" for a light, amusing column about a situation that thousands of people experience (coaching a girl's team) doesn't seem quite as bad to me -- though it is horrible, no argument -- as fabricating a news story or a feature off the news. People can scam Pulitzers with that kind of chicanery, whereas I never have heard of a plagiarist walking off with one (although Weingarten's violinist-in-the-subway award winner in the WaPo was essentially a do-over -- some 70 years later, I think -- of a Chicago newspaperman's idea).

Quibble away. I'm just needlessly ranking, and I see Blair as slightly more despicable. Both should pursue careers as fiction writers. Or fry cooks.

 

Again, it's all personal preference. But you make a great point about the gravity of the topic. I think we all can agree ... no matter which one you engage in, you're having a very bad day.

 

Yeah, Les. Might as well leave it at that. They're both on the other side of the line from where we want to be standing. Dean Singleton and Sam Zell are over there too, in their own miserable ways for the havoc they're wreaking on the business. But no one has the juice to tell them that and make it stick.

 

Outing alert.

henryhenry is:

 

I have only one thought in this entire matter.

Would those of you so anxious to pull the trigger be this rigid if there weren't people getting fired without cause?

 

Plagiarism did not all of a sudden become a crime because of the state of the business, shotglass.

It is a fireable offense, no matter the state of the business, the economy, or one's family life.

 

Thank you, Piotr Rasputin.

Just seeking clarification.

 

All it takes is one good Frankenstein's monster to send those bitches scattering.

 

Again, I am not saying he should be fired, per se. Make him an agate clerk or some other place where he can rebuild himself. And somebody hit on this earlier, but firing people is as much a part of the job as checking the spelling of names. Anybody who gets off on it is a sadistic piece of shit. Anybody who can't do it is chickenshit and worthless in the big scheme of things anyway. An inability to do the right thing for your organization does not make you humane. It makes you a coward.

 

So, what's everyone doing on this thread? Saying what's right, or getting off on someone's error, or taking shots at a newbie who dares to disagree?

Sorry, I'm dense tonight.