Baltimore Sun Columnist: Guess I'll stop mailing it in, now!

21, you used exactly the word I was going to. It is absolutely possible to plagiarize one's own work.

 

And people have been fired for it, too.

 

I don't know. This guy strikes me as a columnist quite popular with a certain type of older subscriber (the kind who most readily fills out reader surveys.) I'm sure he's absolutely unreadable but I don't see the harm in letting him molder somewhere in the back.

 

How about the harm on morale when stuff like this gets to embarrass all the hardworking people at the paper by association?

 

I don't know the Baltimore Sun. Is this guy held up as paragon of journalism? Or is it widely acknowledged that he has the "old guy reminiscing about the good old days" gig?

It's like horoscopes or Garfield. Unconscionable but do you want to have hundreds of readers finding other uses for their Social Security checks other than purchasing the paper?

 

Britwit--At any price, a legitimate newspaper has to stand for something.

 

The difference between this guy and Simers; indeed the difference between this guy and ANY local columnist worth a damn is Simers actually gets OUT and, you know, reports.

This guy is a local columnist and he doesn't get out in his community. Glad I'm not the only one to see a problem with that. And as Flying Headbutt pointed out in the curtain-raiser to this thread, how many hard-working reporters and editors were laid off while this guy was allowed to recycle Aunt Cora stories?

It also begs the question: how many actual damn good writers are toiling at smaller papers, you know, putting in the work and crafting interesting, informative stories, while this guy mails it in? There's probably many on this board who fit that description and could take this guy's job in a heartbeat.

 

FWIW, repeating myself, whether it was plagarism or not, was my biggest fear as a sports columnist, because so many of the games you cover fall into set categories it's easy to do the same thing.

 

Don't get me started.

 

I honest-to-god don't know what to make of this, one way or the other.