Inquirer writer accused of plagiarism

I worked with a guy who had six paragraphs that were identical except for one word to what someone at another paper had a few days before.

The one word? It was used incorrectly, so our desk changed it.

He said it was a coincidence. They didn't want to fire the guy, so he got a month's suspension. He confided to a few of us later that he had copied it and forgot to change it and the reason he said it was a coincidence was because that's what one of our managers told him to do (based on the manager in question, I completely believe this...).

 

If a million sport writers banged on typewriters 24 hours a day, they eventually would write the same story, except for one word that would be changed by the desk.

 

I know of a guy who had covered the biggest sports beat in his state for years at the biggest paper in that state. He was canned for a 10-inch story pulled from a much smaller newspaper. Some say he had been doing that crap for years; others say he was a one-time criminal. He calls it his retirement and rips the paper at every chance he gets.

 

About a decade ago, I got a rare mid-season sit down with the head coach of the football team I was covering.

The coach was pretty accessible, but unless you were from SI, you didn't get a one-on-one during the season. I stumbled ass-backward into it. I had written something he didn't like that he had called me on and I said, "I'd love to sit down with you to clarify your position."

He told me to tell the PR guy to set it up during the bye week. He lectured me for 15-20 minutes on how his team should be covered and why the story I had written was "pure crap" Fortunately, the interview didn't end there and he said several things that proved to be pretty newsworthy.

He had zero availability the rest of the week.

The next day, a couple of the competing papers, ESPN.com, what was then Sportsline had picked up the story, giving my paper full credit.

Two days later, I picked up a competing paper and all my best quotes are in there, completely unattributed. The writer was one of the older guys on the beat, and someone I really liked and respected. I called him up and said, "What happened?"

He said, "I thought they were pool quotes."
I told him I had gotten a one-on-one and he said, "Well, you cover this team too, you know that nobody gets one-one-ones. I just assumed it was a pool quote."

My SE was livid. He told me to call the SE of the guy's paper. I told him, "If you want to do that, that's fine, but I'm not going to do it."

I told him I don't want to have anything to do with it if this guy gets fired. There was a part of me that was sympathetic because what the other guy said about "nobody gets one-on-ones" is true. That said, in the story I wrote, the editors had put in, "In a rare mid-season interview, Coach, blah-blah-blah..." so if he'd read my actual story he would have known it was a one-on-one. But the quotes he used were the ones that the national sites had picked up.

My SE said, "Well, I'm going to call the SE."

A few days later, I asked my boss if he had called the SE and he said he didn't for the same reason I didn't. He didn't want this guy getting fired on his conscience.

 

Newspapers aren't just dying because of the web. This type of laziness, bad reporting and crappy access is a big reason that we don't want to accept.

 

Update - Kevin will not lose his job. He's taking some time off. When he returns, there is a possibility he may be reassigned.