City Pages | The Awl | The Cutline
In 2006, G.R. Anderson wrote a City Pages cover story (“The Chosen One”) on Michele Bachmann — a piece that Matt Taibbi borrowed liberally from for his just-posted Rolling Stone piece on the presidential candidate from Minnesota. Anderson tells Erin Carlyle:
What I will say, as a graduate of the Columbia J-School, and an adjunct at the University of Minnesota J-School, I do know that if a student handed in a story with that particular lack of sourcing, not only would I give it an ‘F,’ I would probably put that student on academic fraud.
Rolling Stone executive editor Eric Bates told Abe Sauer that due to space concerns, two of Taibbi’s original notes attributing work to the City Pages piece had been removed. He added that he’d “get some links included in the story online.”
Anderson’s reaction:
I’m surprised that a publication that I respect so much would actually play so fast and loose with something as simple as citations. I do know that during my course as a reporter for City Pages and other publications, I’ve quoted from Rolling Stone and attributed it to something of the effect of, according to Rolling Stone magazine article. If it was space considerations for Eric Bates, I would tell him that it’s very easy to cut five words somewhere else in the story, and put the five words in that actually cites the source. That strikes me as a basic tenet of good journalism.
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