The Wall Street Journal is annoyed that one of its reporters had his prose stolen by a New York Times reporter.
And so quickly!
Mr Efrati’s Wall Street Journal story, titled “Madoff Sons, Brother, Niece, Being Sued by Trustees for Victims,” was published on Dow Jones Newswires at 12:25 pm on Friday, February 5, and was published on WSJ.com shortly thereafter. At 2:31 pm Mr Kouwe published a related, in fact, a remarkably related story…
Side by side examples follow.
The NYT acknowledges the lifting here.
February 17th, 2010 at 12:44AM
A couple of years ago I wrote an op-ed in which I compared the state of South African politics at the time with . . . American politics at the turn of the 19th century. It appeared in one of Cape Town’s largest newspapers and then got a bit of web traction. A few months later in the NYT an op ed appeared comparing South African politics to . . . you guessed it. The writer was or had just prior been based in Cape Town. I contacted the Public Editor, not so much as a response. It was not plagiarism of words, but for the love of God, stealing ideas is plagiarism too and the coincidence just seems to be too much.
And yes, since the Times would not even deign to respond to an op-ed submission from me, I’m still annoyed!
dcat