OK, this is right from the chief troll ... it's not one of those letters to us and to the Globe, like all those posted below.
Here goes:
I talked on the phone today to a sports-industry insider about the Ron Borges incident, after he contacted us via e-mail.
He did not want us to use his name, but apparently knows both Borges and Tacoma News Tribune reporter Mike Sando fairly well. We’re familiar with this individual’s work and have every reason to believe he’s on the up and up with his information.
Basically, he thinks we’re unfair to Borges, and wants us to know that there’s a very good explanation for how un-attributed copy was lifted from a previously published column and found its way into a Boston Globe column, virtually verbatim.
(For the record, we despise unnamed sources. It’s not our style. It’s an easy-way-out employed mostly by big-media hot-shots. But we’re using one here, if only because the source is critical of us. We wouldn’t bludgeon others with un-named sources. That’s a Borges technique).
In any case, our source said there are private media forums out there for exchanging content. Sando and Borges both participate in one of these private media forums. Apparently, it’s understood that information that appears in this forum is open for use by any other participant – at least according to this source.
He says that he knows that Sando published his Feb. 25 column in this forum and that the assumption for other forum participants, such as Borges, was that it was free for him to use.
Our contact actually blamed Sando for publishing his entire piece verbatim in this exchange of ideas, rather than summarizing it.
He acknowledged that Borges “made two, maybe three mistakes” in this incident, “but that he was much as victim as anything.”
This version may very well be the truth. There’s no reason to doubt that this contact is sharing accurate information.
But it doesn’t pass muster with us. Nor will it with you.
You can’t just lift un-attributed copy from another outlet, slap your name on top of it and pass it off was your own.
Maybe it’s just us.
We do know this: the ONLY people to go to bat for this practice are folks in the media. To everybody else, it’s wrong. Plain and simple.
As for the charge that we're unfair to Borges, we have to respectfully declare that any such charge is bullshit.
We published links to two different articles that offered the same exact content. That's not unfair ... that's called honest reporting.
Apparently, there's not much of it going around these days. So when people see it on Cold, Hard Football Facts.com, they're somewhat shocked.
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5 comments:
I wonder about the copyright issues involved in a reporter posting one of their own published articles to this type of sharing board. Doesn't the material's copyright belong to the newspaper, rather than the reporter? If so, Borges using the work violates the newspaper's copyright and could open up the Globe to sanctions of some sort.
I'm with you ... first of all, the publisher "owns" the rights to the content. And, second, if this were the case, then anybody could use anybody else's info without attribution.
I may not be some insider hot shot, but I think this comes down to Mr. Borges for too many years has burned down bridges.. no karma is returning the favor. He is an egotistical, biased reporter... He thinks HE is the story, well now HE has become the story... you reap what you sow.
I am no where near the level of journalist Mr. Borges is and I never will be. I worked previously as one in my younger days. Honor and integrity stand as a journalists tool, checking the facts and creating should be the norm. Not borrowing, copying, or whatever and then slapping them down to your editor so you can collect your paycheck and run.
I am sure Mr. Borges is not the only journalist who has used careless and lazy tactics to present his views and opinions in an effort to inflate his already bulging ego. I do not have any sympathy for him.
There is actually a term called psycho-plagiarism where an author will deliberately plagiarize another individual with the hopes of being caught. Normally, he will plagiarize another individual in his own field, or a famous person. Many times he will also accuse that same individual of plagiarizing his own works at an earlier time.
BORges is an arrogant jerk who deserves his fate. Everyone who made it past ninth grade knows that copying another person's work word for word is plagarism. As dumb as little Ronnie sppears, perhaps that explains it.
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