Paging Lynn Hoppes ...

Thank goodness ESPN has an ombudsman to handle things like this, huh?

 

I don't want to come across as defending the guy (wouldn't know him from a hole in the wall) because I think what he did was incredibly lazy and downright ridiculous for a journalist, but I wouldn't put it on the level of plagiarizing quotes or someone's thoughts. He pilfered a bunch of "facts," (mostly) verbatim. He deserves the criticism for sure, but a fireable offense? Not sure about that. Facts belong to no one (or everyone).

Maybe I'd fire him for this as a "last straw" along with some of the other stuff mentioned, but probably not in and of itself.

 

I don't think we'll be hearing, "Hi. I'm Lynn. Welcome to Walmart," anytime soon.

 

The Jonas Brothers might hire him as a roadie.

 

I think it's interesting that you call someone who is accused of cutting and pasting from wikipedia a hard worker and thought you might back it up in some way.

It may you're right and Lynn is such a hard worker that he wrote those wiki entries himself and felt entitled to pinch his work.

 

Many, including myself, regarded Lynn's work very highly and felt he was a hard worker. Obviously, he's not working as hard any longer.

 

Weird. I didn't ask anyone who worked with him at ESPN.

I did, however, ask those who worked with him in Orlando.

 

Haven't looked at the article yet. Did he leave in the numbers for the end notes?

 

I don't know Lynn personally but I have friends who do who've helped me, and I'm finding myself to be sympathetic to his plight because I don't believe in kicking people when they're down, and I'm finding this giant dog pile a bit unsightly and disproportionate. If he's a congressional correspondent for the Washington Post, Hoppes is gone if he's even paraphrasing Wikipedia. If he'd just done that, nobody would care. But when you're in a business where maniacal quantity is demanded you cut corners. That's the reality of today's blogger/24-7/SEO/UV-driven mess that we're passing off as journalism.

 

Bingo, Eli, Yale!

 

You may have talked to the deskers. Those who I knew there were all writers and ASEs. It was a pretty even split. If Lynn hired them they loved him if he didn't, they despised him like a sickness.

 

Kicking him while he's down? He has embarrassed the company twice (with the video and the Phillips fiasco), and now he's obviously copying and pasting Wiki articles and passing them off as his own. He deserves every bit of criticism he is getting here. And I don't think Hoppes is a actually producing "maniacal quantity." Far from it would be my guess.