Yet Another Writer In Trouble For Plagiarizing Rick Reilly

Back in early June, a writer from the Province in Canada was caught poaching quotes from an old Rick Reilly column. At the time I wondered why someone would as dumb as to plagiarize from someone as widely read as Reilly, but apparently Herald writer John Sleeper didn't get the memo. Via The Seattle Times....

The Herald of Everett has suspended a sports writer for a column that included material taken from Sports Illustrated.

The Herald said parts of the June 3 column by John Sleeper, "Trust me, coaching girls is a whole new ballgame," describing the travails of a girls' basketball coach, were taken from a 2002 piece in the magazine.

The Sports Illustrated column, "Out of Touch with My Feminine Side," was written by Rick Reilly and was printed in a book of Reilly's columns, "Hate Mail from Cheerleaders," which was published in 2007.

The paper said Sleeper has been suspended for an in-depth review of the matter. It said the deception violated journalistic standards and The Herald's commitment to maintaining community trust.

Just amazing. You would think that with the invention of the Internet and the ease of finding information that plagiarism would happen less, but I guess not. It's also interesting that people don't really get fired for this offense anymore. Back in the day they would have been humiliated and ostracized from the writing business, but now it's a slap on the wrist and they're back to work in no time.

Everett Herald columnist suspended for plagiarism (Seattle Times)

(Thanks to SS for the tip.)