Everett Herald says sports columnist lifted passages from SI

Well, aside from the bizarre side banter provided by double-hank, it's been a mixed bag of where this falls in the pantheon of journalism transgressions, wishing the guy well in his next career and also some talk of how many of us fear that some of our better lines -- summoned from the deep -- might actually have been stored in memory from something written (weeks, months, years ago) by somebody else. So, as you can see, we're dealing with a lot of shit here. </BullDurham>

 

So is somebody going to go to bed with somebody or what? [/nukelaloosh]

 

Well, sportschick's bored and her thread inexplicably got nuked.

 

Somebody out there hates me tonight. C'est la vie!

I've moved on -- Sin City it is.

 

agreed, there is a line:
corruption - taking money or benefits from somebody in the story.
conflict of interest - writing about an issue in which you have a personal stake.
libel - intentionally writing false and malicious material.

those are fire-able.

how many editors and reporters out there - usually in small markets - do puff stories or run photos on events that are sponsored by a major advertiser of the paper? does that cross the line?

how about writers taking gift certificates for radio or TV appearances on the broadcasts of teams they cover? free food in the pressbox? free parking? media 'gift' bags?

what about writers taking big money from websites - foxsports.com - that are essentially partners with the leagues they ostensibly cover?

how many columnists and reporters are influenced by what they read by other columnists and reporters? if an idea or an opinion comes from someone else haven't you stolen it? names, dates and places change, but there are few 'original' stories.

sleeper plagiarized a feature so soft it could float away on a breeze - nobody was hurt - except maybe reilly - who as someone suggested probably derived his piece from something written earlier.

he didn't plagiarize on a news story that had impact on the community or commerce.
his plagiarism occurred in the most innocuous harmless fashion possible.

what drives a person to make that sort of decision - after 20 years of following the rules - i don't know. severe stress, i assume. but even under stress he had sense enough to make it harmless.

there's a line out there, and it's corruption.
sports media is rife with corruption and conflict of interest - that's where your moral outrage ought to be focused.

 

I look at it like this, which is why the word "charming" came to mind: Our profession has this iron-clad rule about plagiarism, which to me is like a constant warning in some big old scary house to "Never, ever, under any circumstances, open that dark door in the basement." Everyone knows it and mostly everyone abides by it.

There might be all sorts of miserable stuff going on in that house -- dad smacking mom, punk kid crawling into bed with his step sister, the runt of the litter playing with matches and lighter fluid, some unexpected house guests cleaning out the refrigerator and running up the long-distance phone bill -- but the one rule they all heed is, "Never, ever, under any circumstances, open that dark door in the basement."

So then someone goes and does it. Gee, what do they think is going to happen? As someone noted earlier, you're better off calling in sick or turning in a stinker of a column than you are lifting someone else's work. I happen to think the punishment is out of proportion with the crime -- I think other ethical breaches impact readers more and line the pockets of journalists who thus are forever tainted, rather than Sleeper's transgression that got him maybe one easy day on the job, followed by a world of grief -- but no one can say they don't know the rule.

 

Okay, he's changed my mind. I think Sleeper should be awarded the Pulitzer Prize. Also, I refuse to eat another meatball sub on press row. Just give me buttered bread and water.

 

That, too, makes you no better than Jayson Blair.

 

Maybe this has already been mentioned and I missed it, but there seems to be the assumption that this was the one and only time this writer plagiarized, when it may just be the first time he's been caught. I'm not accusing anyone of anything, but it wouldn't be shocking if a check into previous stories revealed other problems. That's often the way these things go. How likely is it that after years of playing by the book, this guy suddenly went completely out of character and decided to commit this blatant offense?

 

Who the hell gets caught the first time.

 

I had the same thought. But my guess is that the paper doesn't have the resources to check all of his past work.

 

let's ask host to do it ... he likes google.