Though it’s hardly news to those who’ve had the good fortune to follow the CSTB twitter feed, former Sirius/XM host-turned-web portal hopeful Dino Costa has filled his website with “news” items, culled from a variety of major news organizations. If you’re wondering, “hey, how’s that any different from what CSTB and countless aggregator sites do everyday?”, there’s a few crucial differences. For starters, Dino’s site cuts and pastes THE ENTIRE FUCKING ARTICLE. Not the odd paragraph or two, but the entire piece. Most damningly, unlike every halfway reputable sportsblog on the planet, Costa’s site fails to credit the author(s) or attribute these copywritten materials to their owners, be they the Washington Post, ESPN.com, the Miami Herald, you name it.
Though these ethical lapses have noted frequently — both by myself and frequent Costa sparring partner Tracy Ringolsby — it wasn’t until this afternoon, when Awful Announcing’s Matt Yoder cataloged several of Costa’s acts of theft, replete with screen shots, that Dino found the sort of notoriety he narrowly missed when he said he’d sooner poke his son’s eyes out than allow him to watch Michael Sam french kiss a man.
Through the auspices of his Twitter account — not, I should stress, the same one that at one time had nearly 40,000 fake followers —- Dino apologized, but not before calling Yoder, “a mental midget of epic proportions” (JUMBO SHRIMP! ON SALE HERE!) and blaming the entire debacle on an unnamed 3rd party.
If you’re keeping score, in the space of less than a month, Dino’s managed to lose his website/podcast’s sole sponsor and find himself nationally vilified for blatant, repeated acts of plagiarism. At this point, he’s gonna have to do something very dramatic to restore faith in his (sad sack) investors and re-energize his pathetic fan base (all 12 of whom have suffered almost as much vicarious humiliation as they experience in their real lives). He could always resort to another David Duke booking, but maybe DD would sooner hold out for someone with more credibility or mainstream appeal?