Jason Notte tries to write about Rays attendance, plagiarizes himself

A few years ago, freelance sports writer Jason Notte wrote an article entitled "5 Biggest TV Markets Without Major League Baseball Teams". In the article, he discussed several mid-sized cities and why MLB should consider them as new homes for the Rays or A's. I didn't like the article and thought Notte was misinformed. As I replied in my rebuttal, he never actually dissected the Tampa Bay TV market. In the article, he discusses Rays attendance as the only cause for relocation.

Here is a screenshot of what Notte wrote on 5/16/2014:

After this article, I tried reaching out to Notte on twitter, but was blocked.

A few days ago on March 7, 2016, Notte found another place to publish his views. This time on MarketWatch.com in an article entitled "Opinion: Major League Baseball, like the NFL, asks taxpayers for free money". In this article, Notte is again misinformed about the Rays stadium situation.

But even worse, Notte copied his material WORD-FOR-WORD from his past article.

Only the final sentence of that paragraph is different. Otherwise, it is 100% the same.

I'm not sure how legal that is. Nor am I sure how much editors care. But if I was MarketWatch.com paying Notte for original opinion, I would be pretty upset.

I know freelancing is a tough gig. It doesn't pay well at all. But when journalists copy and paste their material from one article on to another on a different website, it gives the profession a bad name.

Next time, Jason Notte, reach out. I'm here to help.