Petrelis Files

"The Trust" Plagiarized by Foer, New York mag for NYT Miller Story

I'm not sure that part of a June 7, 2004, article on NYT reporter Judy Miller in New York magazine written by Franklin Foer meets a strict definition of plagiarism, but it comes damn close.

New York magazine reported the following:

"The D.C. office had only about half a dozen reporters under the age of 35, including Sulzberger, Miller, Steve Rattner, and Phil Taubman [...] After work, they would retire to Duke Zeibert’s for a drink [...] When Miller dated Rattner, they shared a weekend house on the Eastern Shore of Maryland with Sulzberger and his wife, Gail."

Compare those words with what appeared in the reverential 1999 book about the Sulzbergers and the Times, "The Trust," penned by Susan E. Tifft and Alex S. Jones:

"Nearby sat six or seven other young reporters who, together with Arthur Jr. and Rattner formed a kind of reportorial Brat Pack in the Washington office [...] After work they gathered for drinks or dinner at Duke Zeibert's, an old Washington hangout. In the summers Arthur Jr. and Gail shared a house on the Eastern Shore of Maryland with Rattner and Judy Miller, a New York Times reporter with whom Rattner was romantically involved at the time."

I don't see an exact match here, but it certainly seems Foer got some of his information from "The Trust," cribbed the gist of the Miller-related page in the book, slightly reworked sentences written by Tifft and Jones on drinking at Duke Zeibert's and Pinch and Judy sharing a summer house in Maryland.

At minimum, Foer should have given due credit to the reporting in "The Trust" and I'm curious why editors and fact-checkers at New York magazine didn't insist Foer acknowledge the work of Tifft and Jones.

Putting aside the near-plagiarism matter, on again reading "The Trust," it amazes me how prescient Bill Kovach, one-time Washington bureau chief for the Times, was in commenting way back when that Judy would give Pinch trouble for a very long time.

Kovach's prediction, from "The Trust": "I told [Arthur Jr., Judy Miller and crew] were going to be a problem for him the rest of his time at The New York Times."

Yes, Kovach saw very well into the future.

-

June 7, 2004
New York

The Source of the Trouble
by Franklin Foer

[snip]
In the newsroom, there are several theories. The first, and least persuasive, is the Sulzberger factor. “There was always the sense, true or not, that she had a benefactor at the top,” says Seth Faison. When Miller joined the Times in the late seventies, she arrived in the Washington bureau at about the same time as Arthur Sulzberger Jr.—a recent college graduate getting hands-on experience in the shop floor of the family business. The D.C. office had only about half a dozen reporters under the age of 35, including Sulzberger, Miller, Steve Rattner, and Phil Taubman. They clung to one another. After work, they would retire to Duke Zeibert’s for a drink. The crowd became even more sociable. When Miller dated Rattner, they shared a weekend house on the Eastern Shore of Maryland with Sulzberger and his wife, Gail.

There’s no evidence that Sulzberger ever directly intervened to help Miller, and Miller has undergone enough career reversals to make this hard to believe. Still, that friendship has become well known within the newsroom. Fairly or unfairly, there’s a sense that Miller has protection at the absolute top—and that fear reportedly deters some editors from challenging her.
[snip]

-


"The Trust"
by Susan E. Tifft and Alex S. Jones
Little, Brown
Published 1999

1. on Page 560: "... Nearby sat six or seven other young reporters who, together with Arthur Jr. and Rattner formed a kind of reportorial Brat Pack in the Washington office.

Except for Arthur Jr. and a reporter named Phil Taubman, everyone in the group was single. After work they gathered for drinks or dinner at Duke Zeibert's, an old Washington hangout. In the summers Arthur Jr. and Gail shared a house on the Eastern Shore of Maryland with Rattner and Judy Miller, a New York Times reporter with whom Rattner was romantically involved at the time.

Kovach warned Arthur Jr. about the dangers of consorting with such an exclusive group of friends. "I thought he was making a mistake to become too close to these people," he explained. "I told him they were going to be a problem for him the rest of his time at The New York Times."

Arthur Jr. listened politely, but he put no distance between himself and his colleagues. "It's like a cancer, it can eat away at you," Arthur Jr. said of the suggestion that his friends might have more in mind than mutual affection. "Or you can say, 'Look, I like these people, I think they like me because of who I am, and I'm going to accept that fact.'"

Regardless of what Arthur Jr. believed, his friends were keenly aware that one day he was likely to be in a position to help them, and they even speculated about who would get what.

"I remember Judy Miller telling me that Arthur Jr. was going to be publisher and Rattner would be the executive editor," said Richard Burt, who covered arms controls for the bureau.