Sportswriter fired for embelleshing story

[Skywatcher]

CNN
Gregory M. Jones was dismissed by the Daily Record on June 17, the day after his article about a Father’s Day golf tournament at the Roswell Country Club appeared on the sports page, Editor Mike Bush said.

“He got a bunch of scores and wanted to make it more interesting,” Bush said Thursday. He said he did not know if Jones attended the tournament.

Bush said the story contained three fictitious paragraphs referring to a Carl Spangler who claimed to work at the course. In “Caddyshack,” Bill Murray played a golf course worker named Carl Spackler.

Jones quoted Spangler as saying he invented a new kind of grass for the tournament. The quotation in Jones’ story is taken directly from “Caddyshack”:

“‘This is a hybrid … of bluegrass, Kentucky bluegrass, featherbed bent and northern California sensemilia [sic],’ Spangler said. ‘The amazing stuff about this, is that you can play 36 holes on it in the afternoon, take it home and just get stoned to the bejeezus-belt that night on the stuff.’”

Sinsemilla is a potent form of marijuana.

Bush said the Daily Record received “a couple of complaints” about the story. The newspaper ran a correction.

Moral: if you’re going to embellish, don’t plagiarize from a popular movie.

[dantheman]

THIS IS TRUE carried that story this week. Spangler woulda been proud!

[astorian]

I don’t know all the details, and it’s possible the terminated employee had been walking on thin ice for some time before this incident.

But if this is really the only reason for his dismissal, well… I thought the joke was rather obvious. Most people who spotted the joke probably got a laugh out of it, and those who DIDN’T get the joke probably wouldn’t have complained.

The proper response from the boss would have been, “Ha ha, very funny. Now, don’t do that again!”