by The Editors on February 27, 2008
David Burroughs, the writer of a weekly surf column for the Ventura County Star has been picking up stories all over the place and running them as his own according to a story in Editor & Publisher.
In an unbylined story, the Star said evidence of the plagiarism emerged when the paper was contacted by the news director of Southern California Public Radio, who pointed out that a Jan. 22 column about a proposed highway that would go through a surfing spot included seven paragraphs apparently taken directly from an online version of its story on the highway expansion.
When editors at The Star looked into it they found even more.
Further investigation by The Star uncovered a Feb. 5 column by Burroughs regarding the theft of a web camera trained on a popular East Coast surfing spot. . . . Much of six paragraphs in that column came from a Jan. 27 story in the New York Times by Corey Kilgannon.
Burroughs apparently admitted that he had used the information but said that since he was using “mostly quotations from other sources that it was not plagiarism.” The paper said Burroughs had no journalism experience when he was hired. Guess that’s how newspapers do it these days.
[Link: Ventura County Star via Editor & Publisher]
by The Editors on February 24, 2008
Though we’ve seen reviews of his book Corpus Christi: Stories we don’t remember reading Bret Anthony Johnston’s work in any of the skateboard magazines. Maybe that’s because he is a good writer.
The skateboarding novelist is a graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop and is now the director of creative writing at Harvard University.
Johnston says: “The skills required to be a successful writer or a successful artist of any kind are the same skills that are required for being a successful skateboarder. You really see the world differently than everybody else does and you have a patience and a perseverance and maybe a penchant for masochism in ways that most other people don’t.” . . . “You have to be able to stay there, hour after hour, and hurt yourself, do splits on the banister, whack your shins and stay there bleeding and sweating until you can make the trick that you want to make. It’s the same thing for writers. You have to log the hours. You have to look at the world in a different way and be prepared to sit in a chair as long as it takes to render that world and the characters in your imagination truthfully.”
Indeed.
[Link: Radio Iowa]
by The Editors on February 14, 2008
Electronic Arts has reportedly signed a “multi-year strategic partnership that joins EA SPORTS™, the world’s leading sports software brand, with IMG and its global network for marketing and licensing in sports and entertainment.”
“We’re very pleased to be working with EA SPORTS, the clear leader in sports gaming,” said Bruno Maglione, Co Managing Director of WW Licensing at IMG. “We’re excited by the many possibilities this partnership presents us. The potential of the EA SPORTS label to extend into other relevant consumer areas is both powerful and compelling.”
Does this mean we’re going to see and EA US Open of Surfing game in the near future?
[Link: Earthtimes.org]
by The Editors on February 14, 2008
We should expect this from the New York Post, but then seeing it in print is still funny. Columnist Ken Moran starts his Stratton Mountain sports story out like this:
STRATTON Mountain was the birthplace of snowboarding and always has offered the best in parks and pipes to boomers, blazers and women’s clinics.
He then loads on a bunch of press release information loaded up with complete fabrications. It’s surprising that writers like Ken are still getting paid.
[Link: New York Post]
by The Editors on February 14, 2008
Matt Skenazy spends the day with surfer/journalist Daniel Duane author of Caught Inside: A Surfer’s Year on the California Coast and finds him pretty much exactly how you’d expect to find a freelance writer: spending time with his wife and kids, visiting the Saturday farmers market and sending out queries. Matt Warshaw and Steve Hawk are quoted.
[Link: City Hill Press]
by The Editors on February 11, 2008
Action sports filmmaker Todd Grossman has written a book titled Shooting Action Sports: The Ultimate Guide to Extreme Filmmaking, here’s his story as told in his hometown paper.
For the average person, days are comprised of routines. But Todd Grossman’s days are anything but normal. The Spaulding graduate has spent his adult life pursuing his passion, lucky enough to find success and make a living at it. And every day is different.
You get the picture.
[Link: Fosters]
by The Editors on February 11, 2008
From Press Media Wire:
A record number of fans consumed the extensive Winter X Games 12 content featured across ESPN’s many global ESPN and ABC distribution platforms, including television, Internet, iPods and more. The unprecedented multimedia offerings provided complete coverage of the world’s leading winter action sports competition, held January 24-27 in Aspen, Colorado, to fans everywhere.
Yeah, the press release is a little over the top, but they did the media right this year, no doubt.
[Link: Press Media Wire]
by The Editors on January 31, 2008
10:15 PM: And the show ends with someone getting on the mic after the video went dead saying, “Tech nine is here, too. We’re rad. We’ve got MFM and. . . fuck you.” And with that, the show ended.
9:44 PM: What do you know. . . it’s rolling and it’s dope. Well worth the wait. Check it, click the link at the bottom of this post. Hopefully, they will post the whole thing so we can catch it again on our own time.
9:28 PM: Still no “Live webcast,” but here’s the latest update from Liam is as follows: “The man in charge, Mr. Hoy and the online president Evan LeFebvre are missing in action, but the bird call is out and once Big Ev and Kurt find their way to the stage things are going to go off.” They probably bagged the show and hit the tables.
9:10 PM: Twenty minutes ago Liam blogged that the show would be starting in 10 minutes. Seems like two hours would be enough time to bring in a satellite truck and beam this thing from Mars. Apparently not in Las Vegas.
8:52 PM: Still nothing but blank screen. At 8:35 PM Liam blogged the following: Things are about to get underway. Everyone’s getting good and tuned up. In general people are looking way more handsome than usual and now that we’ve all been in Vegas for a few days we’re all primed and ready. Hell of a night for a party.” Let’s hope something happens. Maybe the start time was 7:30 Hawaiian Island Time.
8:19 PM: After a couple short interviews by Annie Fast with Lil Jon and The Dingo, and a Andreas Wiig interview by Online Evan at about 8:00 PM the screen went black and we haven’t seen a thing yet. Like no live broadcast of anything.
7:53 PM: Well, it was supposed to have started 20 minutes ago, but you haven’t missed anything yet because they haven’t rolled anything but a “Testing, snow. Testing IBN Sports.”
Tune your browsers to the IBNSports Network and watch the Transworld Snowboarding Riders Poll live (maybe) from the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.
We’ll keep you posted if and when this live webcast goes off.
[Link: IBNsports.com]
by The Editors on January 31, 2008
by The Editors on January 26, 2008
In the world of action sports Bnqt.com has been a bit of an outsider. Founded by a former AOL Sports-man, the site featured viral video of action sports along with a user-generated content community. Though the site never gained any traction, recognition, or significant traffic, it was still acquired by USA Today for an undisclosed amount of money.
“USA TODAY’s acquisition of Banquet is another example of the innovative ways we are trying to diversify our audience,” said Craig Moon, president and publisher of USA TODAY. “We believe that action sports are a dynamic and exciting category and that we have found an excellent stand alone brand which truly resonates with the youth audience.”
This purchase shows how desperate old media is to get involved with “the kids.” And to think, Time Warner sold their “action sports” sites a little less than a year ago. Then again, this certainly gives us hope. . .
[Link: CNNMoney.com]
