Palko points to this post by journalist Lindsay Jones, who writes:
It’s flattering to see @nytimes rewrite my [Jones’s] characteristic on two Canadian males switched at start. You possibly can learn the unique, completely reported @globeandmail story I took months to analysis and write as a former freelancer right here: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-switched-at-birth-manitoba/
The original article, revealed 10 Feb 2023 within the Toronto newspaper The Globe and Mail, is named “A hospital’s mistake left two males estranged from their heritages. Now they battle for solutions,” subtitled, “In 1955, a Manitoba hospital despatched Richard Beauvais and Eddy Ambrose dwelling with the incorrect households. After DNA checks revealed the mix-up, each need a proof and compensation.” It begins:
One winter night in 2020, Richard Beauvais and his spouse pored over the net outcomes of a genealogical DNA package.
“They screwed up,” Mr. Beauvais surmised, sitting on the kitchen island in his ranch fashion dwelling close to the coastal neighborhood of Sechelt, B.C.
In accordance with the check, he was Ukrainian, Polish and Jewish. Mr. Beauvais was stupefied. Mr. Beauvais, whose mom was Cree, grew up in a Métis settlement on the shores of Lake Manitoba and was taken into foster care at age eight or 9. The package was a present from his eldest daughter to assist Mr. Beauvais be taught extra about his roots, together with his French father, who died when he was 3. However right here in entrance of him was a listing of names and nationalities that, he thought, couldn’t be his. . . .
The followup appeared within the New York Instances on 2 Aug 2023 and is named “Switched at Beginning, Two Canadians Uncover Their Roots at 67,” with subtitle “Two Canadian males who had been switched at start to households of various ethnicities at the moment are questioning who they are surely and studying how racial heritage shapes identities.” It begins:
Richard Beauvais’s identification started unraveling two years in the past, after considered one of his daughters turned taken with his ancestry. She wished to be taught extra about his Indigenous roots — she was even contemplating getting an Indigenous tattoo — and urged him to take an at-home DNA check. Mr. Beauvais, then 65, had spent a lifetime describing himself as “half French, half Indian,” or Métis, and he had grown up along with his grandparents in a log home in a Métis settlement.
So when the check confirmed no Indigenous or French background however a mixture of Ukrainian, Ashkenazi Jewish and Polish ancestry, he dismissed it as a mistake and went again to his life as a industrial fisherman and businessman in British Columbia.
It’s amusing to see the place the 2 articles differ. The Globe and Mail is a Canadian newspaper in order that they don’t have to preserve reminding us of their headlines that the lads are “Canadian.” They’ll leap proper to “Manitoba” and “B.C.,” they usually can simply use the phrase “Métis” with out defining him. For the Instances, however, the “Jewish” a part of the roots wasn’t sufficient—they wanted to make clear for his or her readers that it was “Ashkenazi Jewish.”
What occurred?
Did the Instances article rip off the Globe and Mail article? We might by no means know. There are many similarities, however finally the 2 articles are telling the identical story, so it is smart the articles will probably be comparable too. For instance, the Instances article mentions a tattoo that the daughter was contemplating, and the unique Globe and Mail article has a photograph of the tattoo she lastly selected.
So what occurred? One risk is that the NYT reporter, who covers Canada and relies in Montreal, learn the Globe and Mail story when it got here out and determined to observe it up additional. If I had been a information reporter masking Canada, I’d most likely learn many newspapers every day from starting to finish—together with the Globe and Mail. One other risk is that the NYT reporter heard concerning the story from somebody who’d learn the Globe and Mail story, he determined to observe up . . . in both case, it appears believable that it could take a number of months for it to get written and revealed.
It’s extraordinarily laborious to consider that the NYT reporter was unaware of the Globe and Mail article. In the event you’re writing a information article, you’ll google its topics to ensure there’s nothing main that you simply’re lacking. Right here’s what comes up—I restricted the search to finish on 31 July 2023 to keep away from something that got here after the Instances article appeared:
The first link above is the Globe and Mail article in query. The second link comes from one thing known as World Information. They don’t hyperlink to or point out the Globe and Mail article both, however I assume they, just like the Instances a number of months later, did some reporting of their very own as a result of they embrace a quote that was not within the unique article.
On condition that no Google hyperlinks to the 2 names appeared earlier than 10 Feb, I’m guessing that the Globe and Mail article from that date was the primary time the story appeared. I ponder how Lindsay Jones, the creator of that unique article, got here up with the story? On the finish of the article it says:
Final yr, reporter Lindsay Jones unravelled the mystery of how two child ladies bought switched at a Newfoundland hospital in 1969.
And, on the finish of that article, it says:
Freelance journalist Lindsay Jones spoke with The Decibel about unravelling the thriller of how Arlene Lush and Caroline Weir-Greene had been switched at start.
Sadly, The Decibel solely appears to be audio with no transcript, so I’ll depart it to any of you to hear by way of for the entire story.
Commonplace follow
I believe it’s normal follow in journalism to keep away from referring or linking to whoever reported on the story earlier than you. I agree with Jones that that is dangerous follow. Even past the difficulty of giving credit score to the reporter who broke the story and the newspaper that gave house to publish it, it may be useful to the reader to know the supply.
This isn’t as dangerous as the story of the maths professor who wrote a general-interest guide about chess through which he took tales from different sources with out attribution and launched errors within the course of. As I wrote on the time, that’s soooo irritating, if you copy with out clear attribution however you bungle it. I believe that the act of hiding the sourcing makes it that a lot harder to search out the issue. Fewer eyes, much less transparency.
Neither is at as dangerous as when a statistics professor copied without attribution from Wikipedia, once more introducing his personal errors. Sure, some school do add worth—it’s simply detrimental worth.
The articles from World Information and the New York Instances appear higher than these instances, in that the authors did their very own reporting. Nonetheless, it does a disservice to readers, in addition to the reporter of the unique story, to cover the supply. Even when it’s normal follow, I nonetheless assume it’s cheesy.