Paging Lynn Hoppes ...

[Mizzougrad96]

Drip, I'm not venting. All I know is that if I was working for a news organization and did what he did I would fully expect to be immediately dismissed when found guilty. Call me naive, but I would expect that to happen to anyone else caught breaking the rules.

I would have expected that after the office video and after the Sarah Phillips fiasco as well.

 

[Inky_Wretch]

Drip, I'm not venting. All I know is that if I was working for a news organization and did what he did I would fully expect to be immediately dismissed when found guilty. Call me naive, but I would expect that to happen to anyone else caught breaking the rules.

I would have expected that after the office video and after the Sarah Phillips fiasco as well.

Agreed.

And I don't have a beef with Hoppes - aside from his alleged plagiarism from Wikipedia. My main gripe is that ESPN seems to disregard journalistic ethics whenever it wants.

 

[Mizzougrad96]

I like the guy. He gave career breaks to a couple close friends of mine. But for every guy in Orlando who loved Hoppes, there was someone who hated him, usually for a pretty valid reason.

 

[imjustagirl]

I like the guy. He gave career breaks to a couple close friends of mine. But for every guy in Orlando who loved Hoppes, there was someone who hated him, usually for a pretty valid reason.

The ratio on that is much closer to 1:5 than it is 1:1.

 

[Frank_Ridgeway]

I don't care how many people do/don't like him. ESPN can't as an employer let someone skate when there is so much documentation because it would never be able to dismiss anyone for job performance ever again.

Some places ban use of Wikipedia as even a reference source, let alone allowing you to cut and paste from it.

I wonder if Deadspin dug this up at random or if someone inside ESPN tipped them off. I have caught a few plagiarists with some freelance editing I do, but I am not clairvoyant -- something has to trigger an instinct for me to check.

 

[linotype]

I just wonder if ESPN will refuse to acknowledge anything that Deadspin does.

This was my first thought. ESPN will never give Deadspin the satisfaction of uncovering something that leads to actual change. Sort of like an AD or GM who is steadfastly determined to keep a coach just to spite the local media outlets that call for that coach's head.

 

[SockPuppet]

Lino, then somebody needs to drop a dime on Romensko.

 

[Mizzougrad96]

I like the guy. He gave career breaks to a couple close friends of mine. But for every guy in Orlando who loved Hoppes, there was someone who hated him, usually for a pretty valid reason.

The ratio on that is much closer to 1:5 than it is 1:1.

At ESPN, that's true. That definitely was not the case in Orlando.

 

[BurnsWhenIPee]

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

 

[JackS]

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.

 

[Drip]

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

 

[da man]

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.

 

[Ace]

Drip, regardless of how he built his career, regardless whether he was lazy and careless, it certainly appears that on several occasions he insulted his craft by not giving a damn and taking the easy way out. That right there tells me all I need to know about Lynn Hoppes.

Hey, I'm just as insulted and shocked by all of this. However, I just said many calling for his head sound as if they are venting. That's all I'm saying.

I think more people are saying they expect him to be fired than are calling for his head.

How did you determine that he was a hard worker, by the way?

My dealings with him gave me that observation but then again, that and 50 cents might get you coffee at McDonald's. Where are you trying to go with this?

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.

 

[Drip]

Drip, regardless of how he built his career, regardless whether he was lazy and careless, it certainly appears that on several occasions he insulted his craft by not giving a damn and taking the easy way out. That right there tells me all I need to know about Lynn Hoppes.

Hey, I'm just as insulted and shocked by all of this. However, I just said many calling for his head sound as if they are venting. That's all I'm saying.

I think more people are saying they expect him to be fired than are calling for his head.

How did you determine that he was a hard worker, by the way?

My dealings with him gave me that observation but then again, that and 50 cents might get you coffee at McDonald's. Where are you trying to go with this?

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.

 

[imjustagirl]

I like the guy. He gave career breaks to a couple close friends of mine. But for every guy in Orlando who loved Hoppes, there was someone who hated him, usually for a pretty valid reason.

The ratio on that is much closer to 1:5 than it is 1:1.

At ESPN, that's true. That definitely was not the case in Orlando.

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

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

 

[dixiehack]

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

 

[Tucsondriver]

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.

 

[Ben_Hecht]

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

Bingo, Eli, Yale!

 

[Mizzougrad96]

I like the guy. He gave career breaks to a couple close friends of mine. But for every guy in Orlando who loved Hoppes, there was someone who hated him, usually for a pretty valid reason.

The ratio on that is much closer to 1:5 than it is 1:1.

At ESPN, that's true. That definitely was not the case in Orlando.

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

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

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.

 

[BDC99]

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.

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.