Alt-Weeklies Wonder if 'NYT' Borrowed Approach to 'Woodpecker' Story

By: Joe Strupp Did The New York Times Magazine take an idea for a feature story from an alternative newspaper, use a similar approach and format, and even borrow a headline? The Times and the author of the piece say absolutely not, but two alternative newspaper editors from Arkansas and Tennessee and writer wonder about the link, and they are not being quiet about it, calling the Times' behavior everything from "rude" to theme-stealing.

The dispute was set in motion on June 9, 2005, when aptly-named Leslie Peacock of The Arkansas Times in Little Rock penned a lengthy feature story on the rediscovery of the Ivory-billed woodpecker -- a rare bird whose extinction had been a forgone conclusion for years.

Peacock's piece offered details of the 2005 detective work, along with some history of the feathered friend and comments from bird experts and conservationists who follow such things.

One unique aspect of her story was the way it was constructed. With a nod to poet Wallace Stevens' "13 Ways of Looking At A Blackbird," Peacock formed her story into 13 short sections and offered her "13 Ways of Looking at an Ivory-Billed Woodpecker."

"It was the biggest story in Arkansas in years and I am a bird watcher," Peacock said. "I really worked and worked and worked on it and realized it was all about perception, so that is what I wrote about."

The story drew interest from the Memphis Flyer, another alternative weekly located about 100 miles away, just across the Tennessee state line. "We get the [Arkansas] Times and we have a mutual interest in the story," said Flyer Editor Bruce Vanwyngarden, who republished the piece about a month later.

Fast forward nearly a year, to last Sunday's New York Times Magazine, and there was an oddly similar story.

Freelancer Jack Hitt offered his own take on the recently re-found woodpecker species, recounting some of the same elements of Peacock's tale, but with no obvious lifting. His story compiled a history of the bird, the secretive ways it was discovered in 2004, and some of the same hype that has been sparked in the area, such as one restaurant featuring an ivory-bill cheeseburger.

But the most striking thing about Hitt's piece was the title and the construct. "13 Ways of Looking at an Ivory-Billed Woodpecker," read the title, with the layout including 13 subsections, almost mirroring Peacock's method, if not content. Although the Hitt story does not appear to have any outright plagiarism--and obviously it's a saga worth re-telling--its similarities to the original story have left some in Arkansas and Tennessee wondering about the overall approach.

"I just went nuts when I saw the headline," Peacock said. "His is about perception also. " Peacock, who said she came across the story last week when it was first posted online, quickly penned a letter to the Times magazine to complain.

"There are probably 13 ways of looking at how such a similarity came about. I am guessing that Mr. Hitt is not a regular reader of the Arkansas Times, and that perhaps quoting Wallace Stevens in regard to ivory-bills is an obvious way to go," she wrote. "But for a weekly newspaper writer in the hinterlands of Arkansas, without much access to the major players, who hoped to find a way to frame her story in such a way that it would stand out from the thousands of other woodpecker stories published then and since, it is a hard thing to see that theme repeated. Alas, who will believe that the Arkansas writer predated a New York Times Magazine writer in the decision to cast the story as one of perception and reality?"

She then signed it, "Feeling like chopped liver ..." No response has yet been received, she said.

Max Brantley, the Arkansas Times editor, said he initially held back accusations when he first saw the story, but has since increased his uncertainty. "I don't want to instantly conclude anything," he said. "It was just kind of stark to see in print."

Times magazine editor Gerald Marzorati said the Wallace Stevens takeoff is not new. "Look, the headline and organizing strategy associated with the Wallace Stevens' poem has been around in magazines for years," he said in an e-mail to E&P, adding that The New Yorker had published Skip Gates's "13 Ways to Look at a Black Man" when he was there. "Which is to say that, in retrospect, we were guilty of cliche, perhaps, but not of
plagiarism."

Hitt told E&P today that he had never seen Peacock's work. "If I had, I would have certainly come up with a different scheme," he said. "As someone who had a liberal arts education and read T.S. Elliot and Wallace Stevens, that just popped into my head."

Times spokeswoman Catherine Mathis issued the following statement in response to E&P's inquiry: "None of the editors who worked on the story, nor Mr. Hitt, had heard of the Arkansas Times or Memphis Flyer articles until this week. The ivory-billed woodpecker has been much in the news, in our paper and elsewhere, and Mr. Hitt's decision to write about the controversy came out of his own interest in birding, and in the South. The headline was written by the editors, though the idea was inherent in the piece. The person who checked the piece, mentioned the concept to a number of people he spoke to, none of whom seemed familiar with the Arkansas Times or Memphis Flyer articles."

At the Flyer, Vanwyngarden was less forgiving. In a Web editor's note posted late Sunday, he accused the Times magazine of taking the idea, and the layout, and not giving credit. Headlined "13 Ways to Steal a Story Concept," his note stated, "it may not exactly be plagiarism, but it is damn close and our feathers are ruffled."

Vanwyngarden contends the similarities are too close to be a coincidence. "I think they took the construct and wrote it in 13 sections," he told E&P. "I didn't see much parallel in the language, the construct is what they did. I think it's rude. If he copied it, that is unprofessional."