Taking someone else’s work and passing it off as your own is a cardinal sin in the journalism field.
Many unfortunately get away with it. Even New York Times reporters have been known to do it in the past.
But the most important rule: if you get caught, there is no force more powerful than a journalist scorned.
Houston real estate broker Sonny Jiminez, founder of Texasrealtypros.com, was caught red handed by the Houston Press blog lifting full articles without credit and posting fake customer testimonials “from a real estate Web site based in Oregon. So you have a bunch of people talking about how much they dig their homes in Eugene, because you’re too dumb-slash-lazy to find-slash-replace.”
The Houston Press caught word when Jiminez just straight up lifted their work for his own blog:
That comes on the heels of pirating a three-year-old Houston Press Eating our Words blog piece on the top ten Heights restaurants, by which point half the restaurants are no longer in business.
The Press contacted Jiminez, who played a bait-and-switch scheduling an interview then disconnecting his phone.
You can’t hide from the press, or even The Press. They will find you, they will research you, and they will go after you:
But lucky for you, you were able to file bankruptcy in 2006. Because you owed a shit-ton of money. A shit-ton. We’re talking $9,835 to a Florida company that handled Rim Stop’s merchant services; $72,648 to a similar company in New York; $1,600 in child support; $2,196 to the Harris County Toll Road Authority; $4,953 to the IRS; $4,000 to Southwestern Bell; $4,563 to an after-market wheel manufacturer; and more.
Let this be a lesson to all you young folks out there: don’t plagiarize. It makes you a douchebag and everyone will know.
