ESPN’s Pro Football Talk Reads A Lot Like Pro Football Talk’s Pro Football Talk

I just caught a really interesting post by Florio over at Pro Football Talk about how their content had been plagiarized by “someone in the journalism business” other than a “small, no-name blog site.”

I was going to copy/paste it here for you to read, but then I thought to myself, “who in the hell do I think I am? ESPN?”

Thus, I shall do what the rest of us small, no-name blog sites are required to do: provide a short excerpt to the story and a link for attribution:

Yesterday afternoon, our own Michael David Smith (who writes primarily for AOL’s FanHouse.com) posted a blurb regarding Dolphins linebacker Joey Porter’s belief, as articulated on NFL Network, that Pats quarterback Tom Brady has his own set of rules. Rich Eisen, the NFLN host extraordinaire who handled the segment with Porter, tweeted a link to the MDS story.

Several hours later, someone from “ESPN.com staff” posted the first five paragraphs of the MDS story — word for freaking word.

Word. For freaking word.

To read the full account, and to find the links where you can do a side-by-side comparison that confirms Florio’s claims, head on over to PFT. Yes, I’ve included two links to the PFT story just for good measure.

One of these days…maybe, just maybe…MSF will be a giant like ESPN. And then I can consider everything reported about sports to be under my dominion, free to repost as I please.

Until then, we’ll keep giving credit to a) the original source of a story and b) where we find out about the story if we find out second-hand. You know, the way it’s supposed to be done.

Unless, of course, you’re ESPN. But when you invented sports, I guess you can do whatever you please.

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