Ron Borges - Plagiarist?

I, too, think the 'notes sharing' policy should be outlawed.

Then again, I also think Borges should be fired. And as others said ... yes, i think if this were a black writer, he/she would have instantly been out of a job.

Borges isn't some kid fresh out of a college who may have screwed up. He's a (lazy) seasoned vet. No excuse for this.

 

Its that hard to send someone an e-mail asking if you can use their work with proper attribution? How many beat writers are going to turn you down? Instead, we give readers across the nation the same bastardized notes.

 

How is this different from having a "pool reporter" or "pool photographer" that is sometimes the case in courts coverage? How is this different from two newspapers in a state trading missing preps games: We'll give you Sisters of the Poor, you give us Podunk?

I think bloggers are against this because they aren't invited into this club and thus want us to steal content off the Net like they do.

 

hecht finally found an appropriate tag.

 

The trading stories example is a red herring. If we had a policy of trading gamers and then you put the byline of one of your reporters on it and pretended that he wrote it, then you might have a valid comparison. These note networks are nothing more than taking someone else's handiwork and passing it off as your own without any attribution. I don't see how getting permission from the original writer makes this good journalism.

 

I agree it's not good journalism in the sense that it is undistinguished, non-exclusive material. Where I disagree is that it's bad ethics. Ideally, these notes exchanges are used as background and the reporter does his own work to expand on it, as Globe SE Joe Sullivan said, and writes the item in his own words. But I think it's a stretch to call it plagiarism, because how can you be stealing it if the creator not just gave it to you, but traded it to you in exchange for notes you gave him? Borges was guilty of laziness, but I don't think we can say he stole material.

 

So we're sitting in a press box covering a game and you have to go to the bathroom. When you return, you say to me, "What happened?" I show you my notes. Do you need to write, "John Doe eluded six tacklers and scored on a 5-yard run, according to Frank Ridgeway of the Podunk Daily Tattler." I shared my notes. You say these notes must be attributed.

 

So its not plagiarism if you got permission from the other person? I thought plagiarism was taking someone else's work/idea without proper attribution.

 

What is proper attribution? For a couple of decades, that disclaimer at the bottom sufficed.

A long time ago, someone at Bloomberg was telling me that using the stuff they send, running it in the briefs and not saying "Bloomberg reported" was wrong. I basically said the "news services" tag was sufficient for us and if he didn't like it, TFB, we are not going to give individual credits within the briefs unless it was clear that some enterprise was involved in getting the news item. There is such a thing as being a little nuts about this.

 

Actually, no. I was in 'this club.' For several years, in fact. Won the awards, went to the big events, etc. Still freelance for papers and magazines. And I'm not sure what bloggers 'stealing' you're talking about ... the only thing I 'steal' sometimes without credit are photos that are on Yahoo/ESPN/Sportsline, etc. I probably should credit getty or the AP on the photos more than I do.

But all stories we link to are credited.

 

Actually, no -- you should PAY for them. Getty photos happen to be expensive, which is why my paper stopped using them. We'll suffice with AP rather than stoop to your level of just ripping them off. AP is a NEWS COOPERATIVE. You are not a member of this news cooperative -- you don't pay to belong, nor is your content fair game for AP to reproduce like ours is (to be used legally only by the other members of the news cooperative). You are STEALING.