The Boston Globe announced today that it has suspended Ron Borges for two months without pay, following the discovery Monday that he had lifted wholesale pieces of a recent column from reporter Mike Sando of the News Tribune of Tacoma, Washington.

 

The similarities between the two articles were first reported here on Cold, Hard Football Facts.com late Sunday night, after we received links to the two articles from a number of readers.

 

"The Globe does not tolerate plagiarism," said Boston Globe editor Martin Baron, according to a report by Michael Paulson published this evening on Boston.com. "Extensive passages written by the Tacoma reporter were used verbatim in the column by Borges, and that is prohibited."

 

"It's unfortunate that it had to come to this," said Cold, Hard Football Facts publisher Kerry J. Byrne. "But Borges has nobody to blame but himself. He's walked a fine line with the pigskin-loving public for a long, long time and finally pushed his luck a little too far. The good news is that we see now that the traditional media no longer enjoy the monopoly on information they once did. We also see that those in the media who play hardball with their subjects should expect their readers, listeners or viewers to play hardball with them. After all, if it weren't for alert football fans and digital media, this cross-continental case of plagiarism would have gone unnoticed."

 

Boston.com also reported that Borges will "be barred from broadcast appearances over the next two months," according to Baron.