Arsenal have apparently offered Mesut Ozil £280k per week to sign on at Arsenal after he reportedly turned down an offer over £200k.

But that’s not the story I’m here to talk about.

I first came across these two stories in the Daily Star. They are both dated 9 March and they are both written by James Walters.

So what’s going on?

The story on the Star site about the £280k offer comes from the Mirror.daily star ozil2The story about the £200k snub comes from the Mail.daily star ozil

So you have a ‘journalist’ rehashing stories from another site (nothing wrong with that) but he fails even to reference the previous story that he wrote that says something completely different. Are they willing to sell or are they offering to double his wages? Could it be you don’t really know?

Not only that, he uses paragraphs from the first article in the second one as well, so it’s not like he forgot he wrote the other one:

In £280k offer story Walters writes:

  • The German international has been locked in contract talks with the Gunners for months.
  • Arsenal have had a dismal week following their embarrassing 10-2 aggregate defeat to Bayern Munich in the Champions League.
  • Should Ozil leave Arsenal in the summer, he could follow Alexis Sanchez out the exit door, with the Chile international reportedly open to quitting the Gunners.
  • Playmaker Ozil has scored nine goals and added seven assists in all competitions for Arsenal this campaign under Arsene Wenger.

In £200k offer story Walters writes:

  • The German international has been locked in contract talks with the Gunners for months.
  • Arsenal have had a dismal week following their embarrassing 10-2 aggregate defeat to Bayern Munich in the Champions League.
  • Should Ozil leave Arsenal in the summer, he could follow Alexis Sanchez out the exit door, with the Chile international reportedly open to quitting the Gunners.
  • Ozil has scored nine goals and added seven assists in all competitions for Arsenal this campaign under Arsene Wenger.

Now I’m not going to lie and say that I haven’t taken a cheeky shortcut myself. But this? This is this some other level of laziness.

How can anyone who claims to be a ‘journalist’ do this sort of thing?