ESPN called its entertainment writer Lynn Hoppes’ taking content from Wikipedia for stories “an example of journalistic laziness” and “short of our editorial standards,” Deadspin reported July 14.
A few days earlier, Deadspin called Hoppes out for lifting lines from Wikipedia for some of his stories. See here side-by-side comparisons of excerpts of Hoppes’ stories with Wikipedia entries. Not only did Hoppes lift phrases and sentences, Deadspin noted in other cases, he also lifted “typos” and “some suspect identifcal syntax.”
In the July 14 follow-up report, Deadspin noted that Hoppes hadn’t been posting as frequently as usual since its original story, so it asked ESPN for more information, where ESPN also said: “Even though he used multiple legitimate news sources to gather background information, we should always recite even the most basic facts in an original voice, and source as warranted.”
Hat Tip: Sam Eifling