Everett Herald says sports columnist lifted passages from SI

I'm glad to see the guy himself seems to think it's as big of a deal as we do, apology or not. He seemed to have a pretty firm grasp on why he got fired.

I don't understand those making the argument that this isn't a big deal. It's a huge deal. Stealing a journalist's words is like stealing a pitcher's arm or James Earl Jones' voice. It's what we got, often times all we got, and it's what puts the food on the table. Granted I'm sure this guy didn't do Riley any monetary damage, but he was still stealing the one thing that makes Rick so special.

 

Provable plagiarism is a summary firing offense in most Guild contracts.

The Guild will usually go to some effort to prove that a specific episode may not "really" be plagiarism, but if the offense is proven, the shit's in the fire, almost always.

Whether Everett is Guild or not I don't know.

 

I read it that they talked about six weeks to let things sort out -- whatever that would be -- with the idea he could still be fired. And he just decided not to wait for what he seems to have considered inevitable.

 

Not necessarily.

I know a guy who got caught back in the 80s. He lifted a golf column.

He went on to become an editor at one paper and is now the editor of an even bigger daily. Not a metro, but a paper in a fair-sized city.

 

What do you do when that happens? What has happens to the people who do it?

 

It should be simple--plagiarism is a line you can't cross. But when I taught college kids as a TA the past couple years, I had students who didn't even know what it was. Of course, I caught a few who did it too-one who lifted wholesale passages from a website. Quite rightly, they failed the course.

 

Mental illness (for lack of a better term - the stress that builds up and plays with your mind) is a very, very serious thing, with ramifications and effects on otherwise normal-thinking individuals that it's difficult to understand until you've been through it.

That said, there are consequences for actions, and the consequence here seems appropriate. We all hope you (and anyone else in or out of our profession who gets pushed to their own personal breaking point) gets help, gets it together, returns to a position of productivity and happiness.

But you can't do it here anymore after you've plagiarized. He said it himself - it's Sin #1. Whatever the circumstance, I can understand, I can have sympathy, I can wish you well....I just can't have you work here anymore.

It's not a case of "off with your head, plagiarizer!" Get that together and hopefully either someone gives you a chance to prove you've rehabilitated yourself and gotten your issues straightened out, or you take another career path. In either case, you probably have a whole lot of living left to do, so you'll have to find some way to pay the bills.

 

The Pitts piece is mighty.