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Topic: Memos Sent to Romenesko
Date/Time: 3/3/2006 7:50:22 PM
Title: Calame says NYT's reporting was original
Posted By: Jim Romenesko
 
New York Times public editor Byron Calame's e-mail to Knight Ridder Washington editor Clark Hoyt

Dear Clark:

I have reviewed your March 2 e-mail to me and the memo written by you and John Walcott that was published on Romenesko about noon today. Basically, you assert that The Times unethically claimed "originality" for its March 2 mine safety article when it was "not in fact original" because of Knight-Ridder’s Jan. 6 story on the same subject. You seem to stake a good deal of your complaint on the statement in the March 2 story that it was based on "a data analysis by The New York Times."

The two Times reporters who prepared the paper’s March 2 article obtained raw data from the Mine Safety and Health Administration and analyzed it. (One of them actually began examining the large-fine database at MSHA the day after the deaths of the miners at the Sago mine were announced on Jan. 4.) As for the transparency “about the sources of stories” that you advocate, the origins of The Times’s article seem clear to me: A disaster sent The Times digging into the raw MSHA data within hours, and a deep commitment to accuracy kept the two reporters busy sorting out flaws in the data for weeks.

Here are just three of the facts that convince me The Times’s work was
original:

1. The information in The Times’s data and chart showing the percentage of major fines assessed at the maximum level wasn’t presented in the K-R story.

2. The Times’s data on how many fines levied between 2001 and 2003 had been paid is different from what K-R reported. The chart with The Times’s story showed far more than half of the fines levied in that period had been paid. The K-R article stated that “less than half of the fines levied between 2001 and 2003” had been paid.

3. The Times’s analysis shows that the number of major fines over $10,000 was 103 in 2001, compared to 156 in 2004 and 97 in 2005 (a number The Times regarded as incomplete). Whether one uses 2004 or 2005, the numbers are different from the K-R article’s statement that “the number of major fines over $10,000 has dropped by nearly 10 percent since 2001.”

So, I believe The Times’s March 2 article was based on “a data analysis by The New York Times” that constituted original work.

I don’t see a problem with Newspaper A going after the same topic or trend that Newspaper B has already tackled. If A relies on information from B’s article or is following up on an action caused by that article, it should be attributed. That is not the case here. If A were to claim or imply that its story was exclusive or the first, I would find that a false and unethical action. But The Times never claimed that the news in its article was exclusive.

Finally, I believe strongly that these decisions aren’t about journalists, our egos, or our obsession to be first and get credit for it. Readers come
first.

For me, readers must always be kept uppermost in our minds in any
squabbling over credit. I think readers may sometimes deserve help in
sorting out whether the secret government document trumpeted on Newspaper A’s front page is the same one they heard touted on the radio two days ago. In this situation, I don’t see a compelling reason for The Times to have reminded readers of the earlier K-R or USA Today articles. Some readers intensely interested in mine safety, of course, might have benefited from being reminded that several of the basic conclusions produced by The Times’s data analysis were supported by the studies reported by other newspapers.

Bottom line, Clark, I don’t believe it was unethical of The Times not to
refer to the earlier articles. So, as public editor, I won’t be urging the
The Times to publish any acknowledgment of the K-R article.

Regards,
Barney

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