WIRED HAS A STORY on the charges, which now appear to be true, that Sean-Paul Kelley has been passing off Stratfor’s stories as his own. That’s very disturbing, and he shouldn’t have done that.

However, to those who are pronouncing this scandal a blow to the credibility of the blogosphere, I should note that (1) he was first caught out by another blogger; and (2) it’s not as if Big Media has been free of such things.

Some people emailed wondering if I knew something was up, and that’s why I haven’t linked to The Agonist much. Well, I knew something was up last week, but didn’t want to post on it until more came out. But the real reason I haven’t linked to him a lot is simpler: most of his posts didn’t have links to sources. I didn’t suspect plagiarism, really, but I’m generally skeptical of secondhand reports without clear sourcing.