Borges Suspended

[patsacolachick]

my 2 cents: THIS IS AWESOME!!! Don't think people are stupid, Ron, cause you'll get caught when you do!!!

 

[marty]

Yeah, I can't believe how dumb he was to do that. All he had to do was re-write that very same material in his own words. Maybe add a couple things here or there. It would've taken him a few minutes. What a moron!

He was too exhausted from trying to dig up dirt on Thomas to "tweak" his Sun mail in job on the NFL notes!!!!! Tough to do such a reversal in only one day!!!

 

[bobgeorge]

During this suspension, he could still be fired. I think this is how Mike Barnicle went down.

The Globe, and any other reputable paper, deals with plagiarism very seriously. It is like Pete Rose gambling on baseball. Above all other things, one thing a newspaper must exude is public trust. Plagiarism is a direct wounding of that trust, that along with false reporting (which has also brought some big name columnists down).

That said, I find this whole thing quite amazing and dumbfounding. However, if Barnicle can be shanghaied, I guess Borges can too. Unlike Bob Ryan, who merely suffered one of the biggest journalistic brain cramps in history, this is something the Globe has to take very seriously and, if necessary, drop the hammer on Borges. Above all things, their staff must know that plagiarism is a death sentence.

There must be something beneath this. I just cannot see Borges allowing this sort of thing to happen without some other agenda out there.

Bob G

 

[Pat_Nasty]

Looks like our eagle-eyed friend from the Pacific Northwest is finally starting to receive some well-deserved credit, in the form of this most recent post on the issue on BSMW.com:

While Cold Hard Football Facts has been leading the charge on this, and really gone a long way in getting this story out there, it appears the issue was first noted in this ESPN.com messageboard post by a Seattle fan and trickled out from there to various other boards and websites.

Of course, CHFF is still trying to muscle themselves into center stage on this one, saying on their site's update,

"The similarities between the two articles were first reported here on Cold, Hard Football Facts.com late Sunday night...

Apparently, real, big-time independent football websites like CHFF can "first report" a story long after it's been put forth and discussed at length on a message board... ironic, considering how they often whine about not being cited enough by the Main Stream Media, and now they've turned around and "big leagued" Seattlestatman right out of the picture.

 

[Box_O_Rocks]

Gawd! This terrific Borges thing and all the Pats great FA activity and tomorrow AM I leave the country and internet access for 10 days. Bummer.

Good luck with the operation! I hope you remember which bathroom to use afterwards.

 

[Fencer]

I don't think Borges will be fired for this alone, because of the Jeff Jacoby precedent. Even though they're not the same thing, it shows that a single incident of plagiarizing many hundreds of words is not, in the Globe's opinion, a firing offense.

On the other hand -- I just wrote in to the Globe reminding them of other incidents in which Borges apparently engaged in dishonest REPORTING. Not bad OPINION ANALYSIS; bad REPORTING.

If anybody recalls such incidents, let's post them and write in about them, and maybe he really will be fired.

For starters -- he said that multiple sources inside the Patriots organization said that BB was biased to Kenyatta Jones over GRR because he drafted Jones himself. Problem: BB also drafted GRR. It's barely possible that one source made the error; it's not plausible that multiple sources made the same factual error. Borges was almost certainly just manufacturing the sources and the story.

 

[ursa99]

Butch Stearns--temporarily the worst sports journalist in Boston--just said on Channel 25 news that Borges has told him (over the phone) to "call the Seattle reporter" for the story. Stearns also said that he has "read both articles" and that they are "similar," but "Plagiarism? I don't think so."

What a disgrace this guy is. I hope the rest of Boston media doesn't pull the same s*hit.

I too saw him and couldn't agree more....I also watched all 3 of the other sports reports at 11:00 and not one even mentioned it. What a bunch of gutless wonders...

As for Stearns, he is on the wrong side of this issue and clearly can't be objective in this instance. I guess there is a sportscaster rulebook that says it's illegal to criticize one of your own.

He should have been fired.

 

[ursa99]

Borges & MSNBC??

Anyone heard anything about Borges gig at MSNBC?...

 

[smg93]

No you wouldn't. You'd get a zero for the paper, probably fail the course. Maybe you'd be suspended a semester. But colleges do NOT routinely expel students for garden-variety plagiarism. (Sometime I'll tell you about the time in grad school when some of my fellow TAs tried to get members of our div 1A football team punished for blatant cheating on a test. Ha, good luck little TAs.)

Well that was what they told all of us incoming freshmen back in 1989! I never tested the theory though unlike borges.

 

[kptmorgan04]

What a Glorious week it has been for Pats Fans!!!!! This week is truely what I needed to get over the end of the season!
I emailed the globe to thank them for taking some kind of action, even if it wasnt enough and that they should take him off of Patriots coverage after this. Also gave a that-a-boy for reiss

 

[shirtsleeve]

Channel 4 led their morning news with the suspension!!!

 

[Patjew]

Schadenfreude, baby!!!

 

[DarrylS]

This is good, someone out there will be doing some research on all of his columns, betcha there are other instances also.. where there is smoke there is fire. He might be gone for good, he is the type of guy who will not let this go and only piss more people off.

 

[ChoWZa]

Can someone post a link to one of these anti-belichick hate articles so I can catch up on why we hate him so much

 

[shirtsleeve]

Can someone post a link to one of these anti-belichick hate articles so I can catch up on why we hate him so much

Being too lazy to dig up any articles I borrowed from the sig at another board. Thanks BD.

On a day when they could have had impact players David Terrell or Koren Robinson or the second-best tackle in the draft in Kenyatta Walker, they took Georgia defensive tackle Richard Seymour, who had 1 sacks last season in the pass-happy SEC and is too tall to play tackle at 6-6 and too slow to play defensive end. This genius move was followed by trading out of a spot where they could have gotten the last decent receiver in Robert Ferguson and settled for tackle Matt Light, who will not help any time soon. - Ron Borges, MSNBC after 2001 Draft.

 

[PATSNUTme]

He looks like the love child of Satan and Rick Springfield.

Excellent!

HE will have to carry that baggage the rest of his carrer.:rocker:

 

[DarrylS]

Can someone post a link to one of these anti-belichick hate articles so I can catch up on why we hate him so much

Check the Boston Sports Media Watch web site, BMSW.com.. they have a lot of info on this stuff

 

[jollyroger]

Looks like our eagle-eyed friend from the Pacific Northwest is finally starting to receive some well-deserved credit, in the form of this most recent post on the issue on BSMW.com:



Of course, CHFF is still trying to muscle themselves into center stage on this one, saying on their site's update,

Apparently, real, big-time independent football websites like CHFF can "first report" a story long after it's been put forth and discussed at length on a message board... ironic, considering how they often whine about not being cited enough by the Main Stream Media, and now they've turned around and "big leagued" Seattlestatman right out of the picture.

CHFF has an entire story devoted to this topic right now, complete with credit and links to the appropriate parties and a timeline of how it all went down. For the record, it was not discussed "at length" before CHFF got a hold of it.

http://www.coldhardfootballfacts.com/Article.php?Page=1359&Category=1

I don't think CHFF whines much about media exposure. The site gets more than its share.

 

[Mainefan]

I was just sitting here, contemplating the price Borges has paid for his laziness, his arrogance and his disrespect for his readers. It's really pretty devastating.

1. He will never be able to escape the label of plagiarist, no matter where he might go. We'll all be referring to him as The Plagiarist for as long as he's around. For a journalist, it isn't all that much of an exaggeration to say that's almost the equivalent of a Priest being called a pedophile or a surgeon being called Dr. Death.

2. Two months suspension isn't long, but Borges isn't going to be able to write or broadcast a word about the NFL draft. He won't be able to comment, criticize or anything else. That's kind of like a 5th grader being grounded for all of summer vacation. All the other kids will be out playing and he'll be sitting in his room, watching soap operas on TV.

3. The two month suspension is WITHOUT PAY. For people who aren't independently wealthy, that is a meaningful monetary penalty. Let's guess he's making, oh, $150,000 a year. This stunt cost him $30,000.

You also have to wonder what's next for Ron Borges. Let's say he reports back to work after the two-month suspension. How do his co-workers look at him. When he goes to games, how do the other sports writers look at him. They may sympathize to his face, but to his back he'll be a kind of journalistic leper.

All of this is worth keeping in mind when you start to think he got off easily. Borges has suffered an amputation. He has lost his reputation forever.

Pats fans may be babies, in his estimation, and he may have thought he was above them and immune to their criticism. Guess not.

 

[shmessy]

John Dennis right now ripping Butch Stearns a new one for sticking up for Borges.