By: Joe Strupp Just a week after drawing criticism for its controversial story about John McCain's ties to a Washington lobbyist, The New York Times is having to admit on of its writers lifted material from The Miami Herald.
In a short Editor's Note posted on its Web Site and printed with the usual A-2 corrections Thursday, the paper revealed that a Feb. 23 story about a drug problem in Argentina included a paragraph from a 2006 Herald story.
"A front-page article on Saturday described a cocaine epidemic in Argentina fed by the consumption of paco, an addictive smokable cocaine residue," the unsigned note stated. "The article included an explanatory paragraph about paco?s addictive power and toxicity that repeated material from a 2006 article published in The Miami Herald, without attributing it to the newspaper. The correspondent, who had done his own research with Argentine and Brazilian officials on the drug and its effects, should have summarized it in his own words, or credited The Herald."
The online note also includes a link to the online version of the article by Alexei Barrionuevo, which has been updated with a mention of the editor's note. It does not mention if the writer was disciplined for the incident.
Slate.com first noted the lifted material in a Wednesday story that compared passages from both stories.
According to Slate, the earlier Herald passage is as follows:
"Paco is highly addictive because its effect is so short?a couple of minutes?and so intense that many users resort to smoking 20 to 50 cigarettes a day to try to make its effects linger. ...Paco is even more toxic than crack cocaine because it is made mostly of solvents and chemicals, with just a dab of cocaine, said Jim Hall, executive director of Up Front Drug Information Center, a Miami nonprofit that has been tracking cocaine abuse for more than two decades."
The Times story, Slate notes, states: "Paco is highly addictive because its high lasts just a few minutes?and is so intense that many users smoke 20 to 50 paco cigarettes a day to try to make its effects linger. Paco is even more toxic than crack cocaine because it is made mostly of solvents and chemicals like kerosene, with just a dab of cocaine, Argentine and Brazilian drug enforcement officials said."
Calls to the Times were referred to Managing Editor Jill Abramson, who was yet to be reached Thursday morning.
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