There's yet another plagiarism scandal going on at the Boston Globe, and it's at least the fourth in the last decade. This time, it involves sportswriter Ron Borges, who pretty clearly lifted several whole paragraphs of a recent column from the News Tribune of Tacoma. As a result, he's been suspended for two months. As Borges was, not too long ago, the subject of a long Boston Magazine about how everyone in Boston hates him, I'm guessing lots of people around the Hub are quite happy today.
As a big fan of Sunday notes columns (especially in Borges' paper, the Globe, where Peter Gammons invented the genre), I find this stuff shocking. And the most shocking thing of all? it turns out all the beat writers have a central message board that they go to in order to pull Sunday stories. Most of the columnists include a butt-covering disclaimer that "material from other sources... and beat writers was used in this column." But the understanding, I'd imagine, is that reporters are supposed to at least rephrase the items, and not just drop them in word for word like Borges did.
(In the spirit of Borges, by the way, I've plagiarized the title of this post from Dan Shanoff.)
Posted by Stephen Silver at March 6, 2007 05:30 PMCome on, any Jeff Jacoby reader knows that this simply reflects Boston's perverse left-wing culture -- pedophile priests, same-sex marriage, oppressive liberal politics... just add "Globe plagiarism" as a reason why so many Bay Staters are moving to New Hampshire. :)
Posted by: MuddyRiver at March 7, 2007 11:14 AM