It's disappointing to write this post, yet I've been itching to write it for the past week or so.  And I keep starting it, not liking what I've written, and abandoning what I've got, then re-starting it. 

What am I talking about?  Last week, I discovered some plagiarism at the San Francisco Chronicle.  Last Wednesday, pointed there by this BoingBoing post, I read this article;"Lethal Beauty: The Allure" by Edward Guthmann, which appeared on the front page of the Sunday, October 30 edition of the Chronicle, is the first part of a seven-part series about Golden Gate Bridge suicides and the debate over the addition of a suicide barrier to the bridge.

It's a good, strongly-written article, but something seemed very familiar.  One ancillary advantage of having a blog is that it tends to serve as a sort of backup memory dump, so I searched this site and found that two years ago, I blogged about a powerful New Yorker article that appeared on the same subject.

"Jumpers", by Tad Friend, was published in the October 13, 2003 issue of the New Yorker.  I re-read it because it was a really good article, and because I wanted to see how the newspaper story stacked up against the magazine article.  And I was unprepared for what I found.  Some of the quotes were the same, for instance.  And the Chronicle article wasn't attributing them to the New Yorker.  The quote ("I'd heard the water just sweeps you under") from Ken Baldwin, who attempted suicide in 1985, echoed a longer version of the same quote in the New Yorker.  And Ken Holmes, the Marin County coroner, talking about his efforts to stop lurid media reporting of bridge jumpers (and thus prevent copycat suicides), said "we weaned them. . .the lack of publicity hasn't reduced the number of suicides at all."  This quote also showed up in Guthmann's article in the Chronicle.

This was puzzling -- was this what it seemed to be?  Was Guthman lifting quotes from the New Yorker article without attribution?  I wasn't quite sure, especially with the Baldwin quote.  Did it date from his suicide attempt in 1985, and did Friend find it in a contemporary story?  Or did Friend get the quote by reporting his story in 2003?  It makes sense to talk to the same people, after all:  this is a relatively narrow subject, and the stories are pretty similar to each other in terms of subject matter and approach.

The Marissa Imrie story also showed up in both places.  In the New Yorker:

On December 17, 2001, fourteen-year-old Marissa Imrie, a petite and attractive straight-A student who had planned to become a psychiatrist, left her second-period class at Santa Rosa High School, took a hundred-and-fifty-dollar taxi ride to the Golden Gate, and jumped to her death. Though Marissa was always very hard on herself and had lately complained of severe headaches and insomnia, her mother, Renée Milligan, had no inkling of her plans. "She called us 'the glue girls,' we were so close," Milligan told me. "She'd never spoken about the bridge, and we'd never even visited it."

When Milligan examined her daughter's computer afterward, she discovered that Marissa had been visiting a how-to Web site about suicide that featured grisly autopsy photos. The site notes that many suicide methods are ineffective (poison is fatal only fifteen per cent of the time, drug overdose twelve per cent, and wrist cutting a mere five per cent) and therefore recommends bridges, noting that "jumps from higher than . . . 250 feet over water are almost always fatal." Milligan bought the proprietor of the site's book, "Suicide and Attempted Suicide," and read the following sentence: "The Golden Gate Bridge is to suicides what Niagara Falls is to honeymooners." She returned the book and gave the computer away.

In the Chronicle:

Marissa Imrie was a straight-A student at Santa Rosa High School when she jumped off the bridge in December 2001. After her death, Marissa's mother, Renee Milligan, looked on her computer and found that Marissa had researched a Web site on suicide. She also had bought a book, Geo Stone's "Suicide and Attempted Suicide: Methods and Consequences," and learned that a jump from the bridge is far deadlier than suicide methods typically favored by women and girls: Poison is 15 percent effective; drug overdose, 12 percent; wrist cutting, 5 percent.

This seemed uncomfortably close to Friend's article, especially in the section reciting the mortality of various suicide methods.  (The only fact that was different in this story in the two articles is that Guthmann has Marissa Imrie buying the book, while in Friend's, Imrie's mother Renée Milligan buys the book after her daughter's death.)

I read the two stories, side-by-side, with increasing disbelief.  But what really made my jaw drop was one particular graf.  Again, from the New Yorker:

In 1995, as No. 1,000 approached, the frenzy was even greater. A local disk jockey went so far as to promise a case of Snapple to the family of the victim. That June, trying to stop the countdown fever, the California Highway Patrol halted its official count at 997. In early July, Eric Atkinson, age twenty-five, became the unofficial thousandth; he was seen jumping, but his body was never found.

From the Chronicle:

In the '90s, a suicide club was formed to predict the exact date that the 1,000th suicide would jump to his or her death. As the death toll approached, a local disc jockey promised a case of Snapple to the victim's family. In June 1995, trying to stem the countdown fever, the California Highway Patrol halted its official count at 997. In early July, Eric Atkinson, age 20, became the unofficial thousandth; he was seen jumping, but his body was never found.

Notice that the Chronicle version changes "That June" to "June 1995", "stop" changed to "stem", and changes Eric Atkinson's age from "twenty-five" to "20"; other than those minor changes, the final two sentences of each paragraph are identical, down to the structure of the sentences and even the placement of the semicolon in the last sentence.

Now, this seemed pretty clear.  So I wrote to the Chronicle's ombudsman, Dick Rogers, and copied Edward Guthmann, the article's writer, and detailed what I'd found.  (I also checked with some print journo friends -- I was 98% sure that attribution was required, but since I'm a TV journamalist, I wanted to check to see if "x, talking to the New Yorker in 2003, said y" was too cluttered for newspaper style.  Turns out it isn't, as I'd surmised.) 

Now, this whole thing may seem like nitpicky quibbling for those who haven't gone to J-school (well, I haven't, but my mother did...and close dissection of the newspaper was the dinnertime ritual in my house while I was growing up), but this is an issue of trust.  As one of my print reporter friends put it, not attributing the quotes gives the reader the sense that the reporter is conversing with the subject himself...and when that trust is broken, it hurts the journalism business.  I agree.  As journalists, we don't make widgets that can stand or fall on their intrinsic merits.  (You can check Consumer Reports to see what the good and bad products are, to see if the car you're about to buy is likely to be a peach or a lemon.)  We make little squiggles on paper that winds up at the bottom of the birdcage the next day, or evanescent streams of electrons that escape the atmosphere at the speed of light.  So the maintenance of that trust is even more important than with physical products.  There's no way to return your newspaper or the nightly broadcast, even if you kept the receipt.  Journalists deal with intangibles like reputation and trust all the time, because in a reader's (or a viewer's) mind, you're only as good as your last story.  And if there's anything in there to erode that confidence -- whether something as small as a dumb typo in an onscreen graphic or something as big as Jayson Blair-style widespread fakery -- then the entire organization (not to mention journalism as a whole) is diminished as a result.

The next day, last Thursday, I sent a copy of the e-mail that I'd sent the Chronicle to Tad Friend, author of the original article.  He asked me to keep him posted on any future developments.

I thought it was a bit curious that I didn't hear back from the Chronicle relatively quickly; no "we're going to look into it" sort of response came my way.  However, late last Friday night, I checked the story again, and was surprised to see that they'd re-edited the story to provide attribution to the quotes and re-written the offending paragraph...with no acknowledgment whatsoever that the print version of the story differed from what was online.  Neither the article's webpage nor the Chronicle's corrections page mentioned it at all.

It may have just been my timing, however, because on Saturday -- the least-read newspaper day of the week -- the paper published an editor's note atop the story and on its corrections page.  It reads:

Editor's Note: The first installment of a series of stories on Golden Gate Bridge suicides, which appeared Sunday, contained material that had appeared in the Oct. 13, 2003, edition of the New Yorker magazine. (11/5) The story should have attributed quotations from Ken Baldwin of Angels Camp and Marin County Coroner Ken Holmes to the magazine. It also used language nearly identical to that of the magazine to describe the California Highway Patrol's decision to halt the official count of suicides at 997 and to describe the unofficial 1,000th death.

This note quickly got crossposted to Romenesko, I noticed.

Nothing happened further for several days -- still no response from the ombudsman or anyone else at the Chronicle -- until yesterday, when I heard from a SF Weekly reporter who was doing a story on the whole thing.  I spoke with him briefly and described what had happened thus far.

And a couple hours after I got off the phone with him yesterday, I received an e-mail from the Chronicle's reader representative.  It says, in part:

I'm writing to thank you for your Nov. 2 letter to The Chronicle and to let you know that I'm looking into the specifics of all similarities between the paper's story on Golden Gate Bridge suicides and that of the New Yorker. Last Saturday the paper published an editor's note acknowledging the improper use of several passages, including the two quotes you cited. I am uncertain at this point whether other similarities were improper or the result of reporting on parallel tracks. I intend to find out. The similarities raise disturbing questions in my mind, too.

These are serious matters and will not be taken lightly. The paper has a strong policy against plagiarism and a strong interest in maintaining credibility.

It's a thoughtful letter and shows that they're addressing it, and that they're making sure of the extent of the problem.  It took them a little while to send it, but I'm glad they did.  I hope they keep me -- to say nothing of the paper's readers -- informed on what happens. 

I'd thought it would be fun to throw this grenade, but it's actually frustrating and perplexing and a little bit sad.  I was shocked that a reporter for a major paper would plagiarize an article that appeared in a major, widely-read magazine just two years ago, especially as the first part of a seven-part series and on the front page of the Sunday paper.  It feels strangely exhilarating to be the person who noticed this and let the Chronicle and the New Yorker know about the plagiarism, but I don't want to be throwing rocks at the paper just for the sake of doing so.  It's a big transgression, to be sure, but I certainly don't think it should ruin Edward Guthmann's career.  The article is a good one, and as I said in my e-mail to the ombudsman, it's a comprehensive examination of the allure of the Golden Gate Bridge for potential suicides, not to mention a powerful implicit argument for the construction of a suicide barrier on the bridge.  I just wish Guthmann had done more of his own reporting and shown his work, because I really believe journalism works best in a climate of transparency.

UPDATE:  The SF Weekly story referenced above is here.

Comments

[Mike]

You handled this with great good grace and decorum. Would that the rest of the world were this civilized.

M

[Ayelet]

Wow. Really fucking interesting, and, as you mentioned, somewhat sad. One would expect more from an esteemed publication like the Chronicle. In this regard, I would, though I'm often astounded by spelling and grammatical errors that get past their copy editors (the other day they incorrectly named the murdered wife of a prominent local attorney on an inner page after referring to her correctly on the front page).

I must say, though, as I was reading the Chronicle series, I also felt as though I'd heard some of the stories before (yes, I'd read that New Yorker article in 2003... as I mentioned before, suicide by bridge-jumping has long been a keen fascination of mine).

What struck me most when reading the Chronicle series was the mention of the fast-approaching 1,000th jump and the media attention SF officials were worried it would receive. I specifically remembered reading about the sad soon-to-be milestone and the thwarted radio contest to predict the day it would happen.

I guess what I'm trying to say is thank you for doing the legwork to get to the bottom of this. Not many (including myself) would go to the trouble to see that journalistic integrity is maintained. Or restored, in this matter. Kudos to you.

[cedichou]

It is quite funny that the SF Weekly is pursuing the story! And here is why: one guy (who coincidentally jump himself of the bridge) Weldon Kees, was the subject of a piece by Anthony Lane in the NYer (http://www.newyorker.com/critics/atlarge/articles/050704crat_atlarge) and of a cover story in the Weekly by Matt Smith (http://www.sfweekly.com/Issues/2005-07-27/news/smith.html). Smith's piece does cite Lane's, but I had some nagging feeling reading Smith's, a sense of deja vu.

For instance, Lane:

It is almost half a century since San Francisco police found a 1954 Plymouth Savoy on the north side of the Golden Gate Bridge. On Tuesday, July 19, 1955, a highway patrol reported that the car, belonging to a Weldon Kees, had been discovered with the keys in the ignition. Two of Kees’s friends, Michael Grieg and Adrian Wilson, went to search the apartment of the missing man.

Smith:

A half-century ago last week, a Highway Patrol officer found a 1954 Plymouth sedan and its keys abandoned on the Marin County side of the Golden Gate Bridge. Two friends of Kees, anarchist poet Michael Grieg and clarinetist Adrian Wilson, a partner in printing projects with Jack Stauffacher, went to search Kees' apartment.

[Randy Charles Morin]

That's some a-list reporting.

[JB]

I read the Chronicle article and felt as though I had read it before. I distinctly recall the New Yorker piece as well. It was very well written; a very good story. Someone at the Chronicle has a bit of explaining to do.

[Margaret Maloney]

I also had that sense of deja vu, but couldn't trace where I had read it before. Good work.

[lani]

Working at a distress line, I had read the New Yorker article only months ago when it was shared with me by a coworker. I linked to the Chronicle's 7 part series from BoingBoing (and you also) and found it very familiar as well, though I am obviously not a journalist, and looked no further into it. Thanks for spotting and researching something that twigged for me as well.

[Anonymous]

For some more criticism of the Chronicle (albeit from a right-wing point of view):
http://www.chronwatch.com

[Tom DeVries]

Nice catch.... except the part about the orginal New Yorker piece. Wasn't that the story where Tad Friend announced without attribution that fear of bridges was the most common phobia in the Bay Area? I have lived here for 35 years and don't know anyone who is afraid of bridges. It was nonsense, and it made me doubt the whole story.
But shame on Guthman anyway.

[ari]

Excellent catch!

[Keith Alioto]

I'm going to post this in its entirety and pawn it off as my own original work on my blog. Hope you don't mind... Nice job.

[czeltic girl]

Way to go, v! That's some nice research. Please do keep us posted on what the Chronicle has to say. Shame on them for failing to attribute sources. Perhaps someone there missed day 1 of j-school.

[chris]

Fabulous insight, investigation, and reporting. This is the height of the blogosphere. Congratulations, and thanks.

[whitney]

hey, michael savage has been telling us the Chronicle's a sorry excuse for reporting for some time now...

[JIJ]

I knew Marissa, we grew up together. and as i did find your blog interesting i didn't find it was very relevant. if you're going to attack someone over plagiarism then find a better example. Missy's suicide was tragic for everyone involved, so for the same story in separate papers to be similar or the same, I mean Jesus Christ find another fucking story to tear apart, not someone's suicide. especially hers. you talk like it's the latest trend or a new fucking movie that came out. she was a real person, a beautiful person and one i still have an immense amount of respect for. the dead deserve respect regardless of whther or not you knew them.

[Violet Weed]

I know Edward Guthmann, have known him for decades. I do not believe Edward would ever intentionally plaigarize anything. As a professional writer and author and a voracious reader, I know that it is easy to say something you think is 'original' only to realize later that you 'read it somewhere'. So cut the guy some slack. There used to be professional content editors who would research articles and add the credits where crediting is due. As for going to journalism school, oh do you mean training for the DEVIL'S MINIONS? Edward is a theatre critic, he's used to giving his original opinions on movies and plays. When everything one writes is definitely 'original' one tends not to think about copyrights etc.

As for the SF Chronicle being an 'esteemed' product, ha ha ha ha ha, we ARE talking about a SAN FRANCISCO 'news'paper, right? The North American headquarters of the liberal mentality and the darker side. One doesn't read that 'rag' for 'news', unless one is, well, stoooopid.

[Vidiot]

A couple responses:

JIJ, let me start off by saying that I'm very sorry for your loss. I'm not denigrating your loss or Ms. Imrie in any way -- the subject matter of the Guthmann and Friend pieces, though tragic, doesn't affect what I'm writing here. I'm writing about the plagiarism and how this story was covered by two different writers. The subject matter is vivid and emotional, which is probably why I remembered reading the Friend piece in the New Yorker in the first place: it made an impression.

Again, I'm writing about the plagiarism, not about suicide. And I don't think I'm disrespecting anyone here, including Marissa Imrie or the writers whose work I'm examining.

------------------------------

And to Violet Weed,

First of all, are you the same Violet Weed who asserted on another site that I'd gotten my facts wrong, without explaining exactly how? If that's the case, please alert me to any factual errors I've made.

Secondly, as I pointed out in my response to your two-year-old comment on EdRants, this is an issue of plagiarism, not one of copyright. They're two different things. We can have a discussion of one or the other, but to conflate them does no one any good.

Yes, the state of journalism has changed mightily in the past few decades. But that doesn't obviate the need to pay attention to the details of sourcing and other such things. As you point out, plagiarism can be committed unintentionally, but that doesn't excuse the fact that it's happened.