I confess, what with all the Domeneching recently, I’d not heard of the case of ESPN Radio personality Colin Cowherd and the charges that he’d reada humor piece from a Michigan Wolverines fan blog called the M Zone on the air without attribution. Salon’s King Kaufman gives the basic story, noting that this generated a lot less outrage than Cut ‘n’ Paste Ben. Cowherd ultimately apologized and gave credit to the M Zone bloggers, at which point all was forgiven.
For what it’s worth, I have a suspicion that the reason this got paid less attention than L’Affaire de Ben is that it’s not exactly unheard of for radio DJs to read stuff they got off the Internet and/or via email (usually stuff from the Internet that’s been forwarded to everyone in creation). The longstanding humor site TopFive.com has made a running joke about being ripped off by Wacky Morning DJ types for years. I think as much as anything, no one was all that shocked by this. Maybe now it’ll be different, I don’t know. I kind of doubt it, though.
I was less concerned about Domenech’s plagiarism than his racism and creationism. (The rights holders hadn’t even complained about Domenech, as I understand it.) But they got Al Capone on tax evasion, after all.
But at any rate, ESPN Radio ain’t the frackin’ Washington Post, and Colin Cowherd wasn’t hired as a sop to an outlaw President (I hope). To equate the two is just silly.