Cheating is Okay in the Sports Writing Business

You may have come across a short article that has supposedly “exposed” Ron Borges, a sports journalist for The Boston Globe. Borges has been suspended for two months without pay by the paper for plagerism.

In case you haven’t seen the story, here is what Borges wrote on March 4th in the Globe:

Jackson was leading the NFL in touchdowns last season when a turf-toe injury forced him to miss the final three games. The injury prevented him from reaching his third 1,000-yard season in four years, but Jackson still led Seattle with 63 catches for 956 yards and 10 touchdowns.

The problem is that, on February 25th, in The Tacoma News-Tribune, Mike Sando wrote:

Jackson was leading the NFL in touchdowns last season when a turf-toe injury forced him to miss the final three games. The injury prevented Jackson from achieving his third 1,000-yard season in four years and the fourth overall.Jackson still led the Seahawks with 63 catches for 956 yards and 10 touchdowns.

Looks kind of similar, doesn’t it? (By the way, both quotes were taken from Deadspin.com, a sports blog. I don’t want to be accused of plagerism in an article about cheating!) Add to that, Borges has been sited by Deadspin (and other blogs) for six such instances!

Now for the twist in the story. It turns out that this type of information is okay to, well, to copy, according to some. It turns out that there are certain “media pools,” where writers submit stories–or parts of stories–and other writers can then use that same information. Cold Hard Football Facts (another blog) contacted a writer and this was the explanation given:

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.”

So, now writers don’t have to think? Of course, it’s okay to use someone else’s material. That’s been done for ages. But it has also been the case that you gave credit, as much credit as possible (which is why we nearly always link to other stories when quoting or mentioning them, and we get permission before using a guest article).

Borges, according to the union, did nothing wrong. In fact, according to some Sando made the mistake by putting his story on the “pool.”

So, its not cheating. It’s just being lazy…and now, that’s okay, too. Whatever happened to just giving credit? Is that so hard? Borges may have been trying to look like a football “guy,” but now he looks like he’s in trouble, and he should be.

Cheating is too common, and we are often told that. But laziness is also sinful, and we need to be reminded of that as well. “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might” (Ecclesiastes 9:10).