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ESPN Suspends Anchor Over Plagiarism Incident, Explains How It Happened

Dec 30, 2010  •  Post A Comment

ESPN has suspended anchor Will Selva, reports NBA.fanhouse.com, after he was accused of plagiarizing material from Orange County Register sports columnist Kevin Ding, as we reported Wednesday.

Selva, who has been anchoring "Highlight Express" on ESPNEWS, apologized Wednesday for using Ding’s words without giving the writer credit.

Selva’s statement said, "I made a horrible mistake and I’m deeply sorry. I did not live up to my high standards or ESPN’s. I sincerely apologize for my sloppiness, especially to Kevin Ding, viewers and colleagues. In my 15 years in broadcast journalism, nothing like this has ever happened and I will make every effort to ensure it won’t happen again."

An ESPN spokesman, Josh Krulewitz, also issued a statement regarding the suspension: "This is something we take extremely seriously and we’ve taken appropriate action. We looked into how it happened and found that this very bad mistake was made because he should have been more thorough, even on deadline, not because he was intentionally trying to claim someone else’s work as his own."

The statement adds that the mistake resulted from Selva’s research, in which he cut and pasted material from local newspapers but later forgot to rewrite the information in his own words when he was preparing his script.

 

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