Everett Herald says sports columnist lifted passages from SI

The scariest thing about the whole Stephen Glass is that it took almost a fluke for him to get caught. He was caught because he did it too well.

I pick up papers all the time and think, "No way in hell does this person exist."

Nobody fact checks anymore. I'm guessing that unless you're too good, it will take a fluke to get caught.

It's not as much of an issue for sports guys. We cover a game and the coaches' comments and the player's comments are usually represented fairly, because several news organizations are going to have more or less the same quotes.

A little more than a year ago, a friend of mine was doing a follow-up story on a fire that another reporter had done two days before. In the original story, some woman was quoted about seeing the fire, had all this detail and the quotes fell into the "too good to be true" category.

My friend did everything he could to locate the woman and as far as we could tell, she didn't exist. When he called the original reporter, he was lightly discouraged from trying to follow up with her.

I asked him if he was going to alert his editor and he said he would not, because there's no proof that she made it up, but he seemed more worried about what would happen if she was caught.

I think this happens all the time.

 

I actually remembered the SI column ... in fact, pretty sure the remembering is not even from the back page, but from the book of collected Life Of columns -- meaning this one was even more dispersed that a typical column, as it is in what has got to be a best seller. probably where the dum-dum got the thing in the first place.
I'm in the camp of, 'pack up your things. you've got five minutes.'

 

I just watched "Shattered Glass" -- or Broken Glass, whatever it is -- the other day. Great movie. I agree that this probably happens more than any of us want to admit. A smart, talented person could do it for years and not get caught.

 

Dumb Ass

 

Would it be too crass of me to send in my resume? I'm completely serious. I'm sick of fuckers like this who have jobs, and people like me who would be willing to replace the urinal cakes in the men's room for a sweet gig always getting passed over. (I'm sure there are others of you willing to replace urinal cakes out there).

 

Urinal cake hockey in the newsroom is great fun.

 

Take care of the gophers first.

I would think they would bump up from their own desk, but they might have a position to fill.

 

Shattered Glass is an amazing film. It should be required viewing for anyone in journalism.

I first heard of Glass when I was in college and there was a full page explanation/apology in George Magazine from JFK Jr. about portions of a story Glass had written for them being fabricated.

I truly believe this happens everywhere and more people aren't caught because most editors have their heads in the sand.

 

Hey, Stewart Scott (crossthread, sorry), Glass got busted in 1998 ... you're MizzouGrad96 ... you go to grad school and read about him there?

 

Must've been a few years after... Regardless, I heard of him when I read the explanation in George...

 

There was a young female magazine writer who was nailed for fabrication/plagiarism probably a couple years before Glass was. She never got the pub that Glass or Blair got, I cannot remember her name.

 

Changing the subject from Glass slightly, this is one of the things the internets have done for us that is really good -- I think people used to get away with stuff a lot more easily. The kind of stuff mizzou is talking about, where somebody appropriates your interview, or pretends something they read or heard elsewhere was said to them, used to be really common in this biz 20 years ago (it was kinda the way many notes networks worked). A lot of that has really been cleaned up.