Sports writer fired for fabrication

I hope this wasn't one of ours.

 

Damn. That's two Virginia sports reporters fired in less than a year for plagiarism.

What was the other guy's name? Bryan Fuell?

 

What's up with the name "Blair" and fabricating stories?

 

hell, i recently fired a reporter for plagiarism where i had a copy of the original story where 90 percent easily was word-for-word and it won't surprise me at all for her to win her unemployment case. i felt like i'd been talking to a brick wall after the phone interview with the person making the decision. he actually said something along the lines of "well, how would miss douchebag know that this (plagiarizing) was something she wasn't supposed to do?" i said, "aside from being taught that in college, it would be like having to tell a cashier not to steal money out of the register." i actually felt dirty and incredulously amused after finally ending the conversation and hanging up.

 

Sounds like a made-up name anyway.

 

Shouldn't be, but the reality is this: You have to be able to show that employee knew it was against the paper's policy to fabricate. Not enough to say it's something everyone learns in college or it violates a generally accepted professional standard. Hearing officer in an unemployment claim or, worse yet, an arbitrator in a dismissal hearing doesn't know or care what professional standards are, just wants evidence that you made it clear to employee that if you make it up you get fired.

 

Chalk another one up on the "too fucking lazy/stupid to really do the job" tally.

 

I worked in this shop for a short time, before she ever got there.

It makes me sad because the people I worked with there, for the most part, were excellent folks just trying to put out the best paper they could.

I'll never understand why some reporters do this. I just don't get it. Unfortunately it's way too easy to get fabrications into many, many papers.

 

Read the newspaper's article about it: http://www.newsleader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071025/NEWS01/71025002/1002/rss01

 

It's so troubling every time you read about something like this, since it impugns everyone's credibility in the business -- at least in the minds of a certain segment of the public.

And I know I shouldn't be, but I'm surprised every time I hear of it. Once Jim Palmer, the old Orioles pitcher, told me that a prominent writer (and author) "makes shit up." And Palmer said this well after his career was over, as if it was just accepted fact. Made me look at the writer, a very respected person in our profession, very differently.

And several years ago, I had a conversation with the coach of a high school basketball team I covered. He said a writer at a competing paper fabricated quotes. The coach's line to me was priceless: "It sounded like something I might have said ..." I told him to take it up with the other paper's sports editor; no way was I going to touch that.

The writer in question soon found himself elsewhere. But he's still in the business. And the kicker is, he recently told me that a major league player told him, and him only, something particularly interesting during the heat of a pennant race. Riiiight.

 

Well, since it was a gannett paper, shouldn't she just try and claim her work methods were "innovative."? There is no excuse for what the reporter did, though there are reporters working today taking quotes from press conferences they didn't attend from other news sources sites. I'm glad reporters and copy editors are seen as the last bastion of credibilty newspapers have since management types have been getting away with similar ethical sketchiness for years.