I was watching ESPN Sunday and something in the ever-present crawl caught my eye. I didn’t see what the exact story was, but the tagline said, “…first reported by NFL.com.”

I chuckled, knowing how sensitive ESPN is about the attribution issue, especially in light of a recent flap.

ESPN ombudsman Robert Lipsyte dedicated his latest column to unraveling a situation involving ESPN reporter Brett McMurphy.

Lipsyte writes:

On Nov. 6, Brent Zwerneman, who covers Texas A&M football for the San Antonio Express-News and the Houston Chronicle, posted what he considered “huge news in our fair state:” A&M was no longer interested in playing the University of Texas in the regular season. He based that assumption on the implications of this quote: “We hope to play them again in a BCS or playoff game at some point.” He attributed the quote thusly: “A&M senior associate athletic director Jason Cook told me this afternoon.”

As Zwerneman wrote in blogs for the two newspapers (both owned by the Hearst Corporation, which also has a 20 percent interest in ESPN), that stance was a “far cry” from the Aggies’ previous “Anytime, anywhere,” attitude toward a game with the Longhorns, their former conference rivals in the Big 12. Zwerneman attributed this to the Aggies’ recent success since moving to the Southeast Conference.

In reporting the story, Zwerneman tipped his hat to the Austin American-Statesman’s Kirk Bohls, who had earlier tweeted that he was “told by a higher-up Longhorn that the Texas-Texas A&M rivalry ‘perhaps’ could resume.”

Three hours later, Brett McMurphy, a college sports reporter for ESPN, filed a similar story with exactly the same quote. From the piece: “‘We hope to play them again in a BCS bowl or playoff game at some point,’ Texas A&M senior associate athletic director Jason Cook told ESPN on Wednesday.”

McMurphy wrote that “Cook would not elaborate,” but he came to the same conclusion as Zwerneman. McMurphy wrote: “It’s pretty clear the Aggies have no intention of scheduling any future regular-season games with Texas.”

Zwerneman subsequently demanded that McMurphy credit him for the initial scoop, believing that McMurphy had been pointed to Cook and the story by Zwerneman’s tweets and blogs on the topic (just as Zwerneman had been pointed to it by Bohls).

Later, Lipsyte writes:

Zwerneman, 42, the newspaper reporter, has covered the Aggies for 17 years and written three books about the school. He believes it was “simply wrong” of ESPN’s McMurphy to fail to credit him with this “breaking story” and then “stunningly” claim credit for the quote, which “means one thing: an exclusive.”

McMurphy, 51, spent 22 years at The Tampa Tribune as well as short stints at CBSSports.com and AOL Fanhouse before joining ESPN in August 2012. He doesn’t dispute the fact that Zwerneman’s blogs alerted him to the Cook quote or the story. But he saw no reason to offer attribution — and his TV editor at ESPN concurs — because he independently interviewed Cook by phone “for 10 or 15 minutes” as well as other sources.

Cook gave him the same quote, McMurphy told me, and he doesn’t understand why Zwerneman “went off like a 12-year-old girl.” Feisty on the phone and on email, McMurphy wrote to me that “Brent — and now you — will have spent more time on this than Kennedy historians spent dissecting the Zapruder film.”

Even though McMurphy’s editor defended him, Lipsyte said ESPN should have attributed its story back to the Texas reports.

He writes:

Nevertheless, I think there’s a flag on this play. I disagree with Salituro that it’s only about two reporters getting the same quote. Why would McMurphy call the Aggies’ Cook in the first place if he hadn’t been alerted by Zwerneman’s reporting? Whether Cook repeated the quote verbatim to McMurphy or merely agreed it was authentic is immaterial — that “told ESPN” is generally interpreted as ESPN having been told exclusively, or at least first. McMurphy might have slightly advanced the story by confirming it and adding some background of his own (neither story topped 250 words), but a tip of his hat would have been ethically proper.

I disagree. I’ve been on the other end some scoops that I’ve reported in Chicago. The credit lasts about 10 seconds before everyone else confirms the information.

McMurphy did his own interview for the story. Perhaps using the line “told ESPN on Wednesday” made it seem as if it was his exclusive. However, I believe McMurphy was just trying to show those were his quotes.

Also, this wasn’t a breaking news story. Rather, this was about confirming something that already was out there: A&M won’t be playing Texas.

I have to say I would have handled the story the same way as McMurphy. That’s how things work in the new media world.

Now we’ll have to see how the Sherman Report ombudsman weighs in on that one.