February 25, 2020 02:30 PM UTC

Fox News Straight-Up Thieves Denver Post Story

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• by: Colorado Pols

They’re getting lazy over at the Fox News Channel, as a rightfully annoyed Alex Burness of the Denver Post calls out what would definitely meet our old college professors’ definition of plagiarism:

Here’s @foxnews rephrasing (and actually just copying in certain areas) my entire story, nearly line-by-line, and incorrectly stating in the headline that the governor might sign a bill tomorrow that hasn’t even hit his desk yet. https://t.co/iFxOpw6u96

— Alex Burness (@alex_burness) February 25, 2020

And sure enough, the thinly-disguised (if at all) cribbing is easy to spot–Burness’ story:

A bleary-eyed Colorado House voted for a bill to repeal the death penalty around 4 a.m. Tuesday, after about 11 hours of discussion.

The bulk of that time was taken up by Republicans either making speeches or bringing various unsuccessful bill amendments in an effort to slow the bill’s roll. They forced a couple hours of debate on whether voters should be allowed to decide this matter, but Democrats shot those amendments down.

“I’m not going to dodge the hard issues by sending them to the people,” said Rep. Jeni Arndt of Fort Collins, a sponsor of the repeal bill. “We are the people.”

And here’s Fox News’ Barnini Chakraborty:

The vote from bleary-eyed lawmakers finally came around 4 a.m. after Republicans repeatedly tried to slow the process by making lengthy speeches or bringing unsuccessful amendments up for a vote…

At one point, Republicans forced two hours of debate on whether voters, not lawmakers, should be able to decide whether capital punishment should be legalized in the state.

“I’m not going to dodge the hard issues by sending them to the people,” Rep. Jeni Arndt, the sponsor of the repeal bill, said. “We are the people.”

As Scott “McPlagiarist” McInnis can tell you, you have to change more words than that.