NBC Sports Writer Fired For Copying Lines from "West Wing"

This incident was mentioned May 18 on "The Daily Show" with Jon Stewart. You can watch the clip here under the title "plagarism". Comedy Central reruns the show various times during the day. It also airs on More4 in the United Kingdom at 8:30PM GMT, and at 9:30PM GMT on More4 + 1 .




From the New York Times:
"A freelance writer will no longer receive assignments from NBC Universal Sports after copying two passages from a 2002 episode of "The West Wing" in his script for a feature that preceded the Kentucky Derby on Saturday.

Ken Schanzer, the president of NBC Universal Sports, confirmed that the plagiarism had occurred. He would not identify the writer but said, "He won't work here anymore."

The short feature, which was preceded by a commercial for the final two episodes of "The West Wing," looked at the difficulties faced by Barbaro's trainer, Michael Matz, who survived a plane crash in Sioux City, Iowa, then led three children to safety; Alex Solis, who broke his back in a track spill two years ago but rode Brother Derek on Saturday; and Brother Derek's trainer, Dan Hendricks, who was paralyzed in a motocross accident.

In the script, read by NBC's Tom Hammond, Matz was extolled because he "ran into the fire to save the lives of three children." Hammond paused dramatically and added, "Ran into the fire."

The two-hour opening episode of the fourth season of "The West Wing" included a plot line in which two pipe bombs exploded and killed 44 people in the swim team's facility at the fictitious Kennison State University in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Martin Sheen, who plays President Josiah Bartlet, delivered a speech praising the rescuers who "ran into the fire to help get people out." He paused and added dramatically, "Ran into the fire."

The Derby script summed up the changed lives of Matz, Solis and Hendricks by saying that the "funny thing about life is that every time we think we've measured our capacity to meet its challenges, we're reminded that that capacity may well be limitless."

In "The West Wing," Bartlet said, "The streets of heaven are too crowded with angels, but every time we think we've measured our capacity to meet a challenge, we look up and we're reminded that that capacity may well be limitless."

The similarities between the Derby feature script and the script for the episode of "The West Wing," written by Aaron Sorkin, were discovered by a reader who sent an e-mail message to The New York Times."