[Pen-l] letter to NYT public editor

[MICHAEL YATES <mikedjyates@xxxxxxx>]

Here is a letter I sent to the Times public editor.  Michael Perelman sent me the Times article on Braddock, PA.  Michael Yates
 
Dear Mr. Hoyt:
 
On January 31, the Times published an article by David Streitfeld on the town
of Braddock, PA. (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/01/us/01braddock.html?pagewanted=2&ref=us).
This article, titled "Rock Bottom for Decades, But Showing Signs of Life,"
is remarkably similar to one published in Monthly Review's December issue
by Jim Straub--"Braddock, Pennsylvania: Out of the Furnace and into the Fire."  Virtually everything in the
Straub article is in Streitfeld's.  Given that the Monthly Review article has gotten a good deal
of publicity, even praised on Jame's Wolcott's Vanity Fair blog (December 18, 2008).
I'd bet that Mr. Streitfeld got the idea for a Braddock piece from Straub and
used Straub's article as a template for his.  Yet he gave no credit to Straub or
Monthly Review.  Straub did the original work and your journalist piggy-backed on it without
telling readers what he had done.  I am from western Pennsylvania  and can assure you that
unless Streitfeld is from around there too, he would not know much about Braddock.
 
The person who informed me of your Braddock piece remarked that newspapers are becoming more
like blogs.  Original research is a thing of the past.  Copying is in.
 
Sincerely yours,
 
Michael Yates, Associate Editor of Monthly Review and Editorial Director of Monthly Review Press.
 

 

 

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