New York Times Uses 100 Interviews Without Linking Back. And Then We Work It Out.

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

New York Times Uses 100 Interviews Without Linking Back. And Then We Work It Out.

In May, I wrote a piece on 100 Interviews about a couple in Staten Island, Amanda Curtis and Brendan Coyle, who run an art gallery out of their apartment.

Last week, Brendan Facebook-ed me to say that a reporter for the New York Times reached out to them about doing a piece. I thought it was cool. They deserve the recognition. In the message he wrote, “when she came to interview us she asked about your interview and said she was using it as a background reference on us to get aquainted(sic) with our story.” That worried me.

The Times piece came out on Sunday (ironically, the same day I had a small interview in the Times Magazine). The reporter didn’t plagiarize and I’m sure she got all the information from Brendan and Amanda directly but reading the piece, it didn’t sit right with me. The structure was exactly like mine, with no mention of 100 Interviews.

See: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/14/realestate/what-the-ravens-wrought-habitatstompkinsville-si.html

This is the email I sent to the Times in full:

Hello,

I am trying to reach Constance Rosenblum or her editor at Habitats with this email, but if this is not correct, please let me know.

My name is Gaby Dunn and I write the blog project 100 Interviews (100interviews.com). In May, I wrote about the couple featured in the Habitats piece “What the Ravens Wrought” for my site. About a week ago, the male half of the couple, Brendan, reached out to tell me that Habitats would also be running a piece on them. They deserve the attention so I was pleased. I was slightly worried though, when he added that the reporter, Connie Rosenblum, had read my original article: “when she came to interview us she asked about your interview and said she was using it as a background reference on us to get aquainted(sic) with our story.”

Super flattering and great for a somewhat small blog like mine. However, when I saw the finished product that ran Sunday, I was even less pleased. It’s very, very clear that my piece was used on background and as the backbone for Ms. Rosenblum’s article — and supplied multiple anecdotes including Amanda’s childhood and the story of how they met to Ms. Rosenblum’s story. The Habitats piece also uses the same anecdote about Amanda’s Victorian inn childhood that I used in 100 Interviews as the lead for the story — just as I used it as my lead. Ms. Rosenblum obviously did not plagiarize, but it’s very clear her piece would not exist as it does without my original reporting.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/14/realestate/what-the-ravens-wrought-habitatstompkinsville-si.html

http://100interviews.com/post/5578804094/39

Again, I’m very flattered your reporter read my blog — and as I just started freelancing for the Times Magazine, I love you guys. I would really appreciate a link to my piece included in the online version of “What the Ravens Wrought.”

Thank you for your time,
Gaby

Then I worried about a response. 100 Interviews is a popular site, for sure, but it’s not the New York Times. What if they never replied? What if they did reply and told me to piss off? What recourse does a little blog even have?

A reply came quickly. It was from Constance Rosenblum. It acknowledged that she’d read 100 Interviews in order to write the piece in the Times, but she’d then done her own research and interviews. She probably should have linked back. It said, in part: “I would be very happy to see if i can add a link to your interview, which i thought was excellent. let me see if i can make that happen.”

Soon, she wrote again saying she was working on getting the Times web people to link to 100 Interviews. She hoped it’d be up by Wednesday.

A link to 100 Interviews was added to the side of the New York Times article on Brendan and Amanda today, as promised.

And that’s that.