On January 11th, FoxSports.com published an article by Kenny Florian previewing the T.J. Dillashaw-Dominick Cruz bantamweight title fight in Boston. You can’t read that article because FoxSports.com took down the content and replaced it with the following:
(Editor’s Note: Language in this breakdown borrows from written material in a video of an in-depth look at the defensive boxing prowess of Willie Pep by TheFightCity.com boxing analyst Lee Wylie. The original version of this story did not contain this credit. We regret the oversight.)
The offending content has been removed from this URL.
Kenny Florian should never write for paid publication ever again
Of course, “the original version of this story did not contain this credit” is a roundabout way of saying ol’ K-Flo plagiarized the article. Fox Sports suspended Florian, which included Florian’s participation on the Fox Sports panel for the Dillashaw-Cruz fight. Florian offered an apology on Twitter, which can be seen at Bloody Elbow.
Florian went into greater depth on the following episode of his podcast with Jon Anik. First, here’s Florian on how this mistake happened:
I’m a quote guy. I’m a guy who always is researching articles and videos. I make notes all the time. I typically use those notes for myself. I don’t write articles on the regular. … For this particular article, I went back and researched my notes. The problem with these notes, they weren’t actually my quotes, and I thought that they were mine, and I inserted them into the article. It was a terrible oversight.
Suffice to say, this is a terrible note-taking system for someone who may later insert said notes into an article for publication. It’s also important to note that this is not a valid excuse. Imagine the author of an academic paper being called out for plagiarism, and her response is “Oh snap, y’all, I have this really bad note-taking system where I don’t always cite where I read something. Sorry for the oversight.'” She’d be laughed out of academia.
The cost of using someone’s work without credit may not be as severe in journalism as in academia, but that doesn’t mean there’s any more leeway about what constitutes plagiarism. Florian may not have intended to plagiarize, but he did, blatantly.
But there’s something in this explanation that rubs me the wrong way. Wylie published his video on December 3rd of last year. Florian’s article was published a little over a month later. It’s hard enough to believe Florian can’t discern his own work from others, but when the work in question was consumed, at most, 40 days prior? Florian is well-educated; he has a Communications degree from Boston College. To put it bluntly, is he really that stupid?
Florian continued…
As soon as I recognized that, I wanted to address it immediately. So, I was the one who went to FoxSports.com. I told them about this error. I actually went to the author as well, immediately – Lee Wylie, who did a great job on the analysis of Willie Pep.
This is the most confusing part about the apology. Florian says that he wanted to address it “as soon as [he] recognized that.” Florian likely recognized it because Wylie tweeted about it three days after publication. At best, Florian is suggesting he went about rectifying the situation as soon as he was made aware of it. At worst, he’s suggesting that he was proactive after noticing the mistake himself. It seems unlikely that it’s the latter case, but it’s a bad look when there’s any ambiguity when dealing with a situation that involves your irresponsibility with words.
Florian wraps up with his love for the sport:
I’m very passionate about the sport. I didn’t get into this sport to make money. Back in the ’90s, it wasn’t cool to do Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. It wasn’t cool to roll around with other dudes. It wasn’t something where I was thinking, I’m gonna make a million dollars doing this.
It’s not clear what money or Florian’s entrance into the sport have to do with the plagiarism in question, but if the above is genuine, then Florian’s only acceptable option is to never write for paid publication ever again.
Because what’s the point? A quick glance at FoxSports.com shows four previous bylines to his credit. This clearly isn’t a life-changing amount of income, and Florian apparently isn’t all that motivated by money anyway. Any subsequent work from this point on will be met with heavy skepticism, which seems like more trouble than it’s worth. Have him call some fights, put him on a panel, just keep him away from the keyboard.
