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Journalism of Courage
Some journalistic sins are crystal clear, like Jayson Blair plagiarising out-of-town stories without leaving New York. And some situations are much murkier. John Sutter, publisher of the Villager, says The New York Times has been stealing story ideas from his small Greenwich Village paper.
There’s no hint of plagiarism here; in each case, Times staffers did their own reporting and filed stories that read very differently. And it’s hardly unusual for big-city papers, including The Washington Post, to follow up on reports in smaller community papers.
But in this case there appears to be a pattern of lifting ideas without credit. Sutter cited 32 articles over the last three years on subjects that appeared first in the Villager. In 11 cases, one or more people quoted by the Villager are also quoted in the subsequent Times piece.
‘‘At first we were flattered that the Times was picking up our stories,’’ Sutter wrote to a Times editor, ‘‘but that has long since turned to dismay and anger…. The weight of the evidence indicates lazy reporting.’’
Bill Borders, a Times senior editor, said his paper was, in most instances, simply doing its job. ‘‘I would suggest that any good reporter covering the area would — or should — know of these news developments, and write about them,’’ he wrote Sutter. ‘‘If you got to them first, I regret that, but the fact of that priority does not constitute any kind of violation.’’
Times spokesman Toby Usnik said that ‘‘in some of the cases we should have noted the Villager’s earlier reports. It is always our intention to give credit where credit is due.’’
Some of the disputed stories involve neighbourhood events on which the Times likely would have followed up whether the 12,000-circulation Villager covered them or not. But others are clearly features fueled by the reporters’ enterprise.
• Villager, June 5, 2002: ‘‘A detective hot on the trail of the man who may have been the basis for the title character from The Great Gatsby thinks he may have found him in Greenwich Village.’’
• Times, June 16, 2002: ‘‘Howard Comen, a detective from South Carolina, arrived in New York last week to unravel one of the great mysteries of American literature. Was the Great Gatsby a real person, and if so, who?’’
• Villager, May 15, 2002: ‘‘Now, as the area becomes more gentrified, one of the last remnants of more colourful days may be coming to an end as a local Krishna centre has been ordered evicted by the end of this week, said the group’s head, Kapindra Swami.’’
• Times, May 26, 2002: ‘‘Kapindra Swami says there is a difference between the food served by his Hare Krishna temple at Avenue B near First Street and the upscale cuisine available at the area’s dozens of restaurants.’’
• Villager, June 11, 2003: ‘‘Upset over two pornography shops that opened within a week of each other on Eighth Avenue, more than 100 Chelsea residents met last week and vowed to explore ways to close them down.’’
• Times, June 15, 2003: ‘‘Eighth Avenue in Chelsea does not blush easily…. But the latest addition, a 24-hour sex shop called the Blue Store … has neighbours in a tizzy.’’
• Villager, Jan. 24, 2001: ‘‘Another dog-shock incident — this time at Washington Square.’’
• Times, Feb. 4, 2001: ‘‘An Unexpected Danger to Dogs Lurks on Snowy Streets.’’
A Times story on the dismantling of two huge smokestacks did mention the Villager, but Sutter says this was only after he learned the piece was being written and called the reporter to insist on credit.
In April, the Times did an obituary on former boxer Jimmy Gambino that noted, as did a Villager story a year earlier and an obit 10 days before, that he had once sparred with Rocky Marciano and later lost his legs.
Sutter complained to Times reporter Kelly Crow, who wrote: ‘‘I feel I owe you and your reporter an apology…. I included a line high up to the effect of ‘Mr. Gambino, whose life and death was first reported by the Villager, a community newspaper.’’’ Unfortunately, Crow says, she had to cut that for space reasons. ‘‘It was unprofessional, but certainly not deviously intentional.’’
In his letter, Borders agreed that in some cases, such as the Gambino and the dog stories, the Times ‘‘seemed to show an unhealthy reliance on prior reporting in the Villager.’’ He wrote that ‘‘this is not just the arrogant old New York Times circling the wagons,’’ adding: ‘‘We don’t want you to think we are ‘purloining’ your ideas, and we certainly don’t believe that it’s the truth.’’ Says Sutter: ‘‘The New York Times has admitted to us, but not to their readers, an unhealthy reliance on prior reporting in my newspapers. We’re sick of being unbylined, unattributed, and unpaid stringers for the ‘paper of record.’ ’’ (LA Times-Washington Post)
