All the News That’s Fit to Imitate?*

Apparently there is not enough news to go around. Twice already this week someone has brought to our attention similar articles being published in different papers by different writers. The first example comes to us from former fishbowlNY’er Neal Ungerleider who points out that both USA Today and the Times of London ran very similar pieces on Iraq’s newly revived heavy metal music scene, two weeks apart. The USA Today article ran on Oct. 30 while the Times piece ran more than two weeks later on Nov. 16. As Neal points out, it’s understandable that the two would cover the same event, but curious that they quote the same sources, also this paragraph rings awfully similar:

USA Today:
Throughout the two-hour show, the crowd thrashed about, a sea of sweating bodies and banging heads.

Times of London:
Sweating fans thrashed, writhed and banged heads. Heavy metal was back, alive and kicking, in Baghdad.

Meanwhile! Peter Feld points out similarities between The Atlantic‘s story on the Obama girls choosing a school, and the one that ran a week later in the New York Times‘ this weekend (Jeff Goldberg noted it also).

*We are sort of imitating Feld’s hed here.

Feld takes a closer look at the pieces here, but here’s and example of what he’s talking about:

The Atlantic:
Among the Washington power elite — the law-firm partners, high government officials, and big-name journalists — the process of applying to private school is not only ulcer-inducing (and wallet-busting — tuitions run as high as $28,000 this year) but is a particularly brutal spectator sport, a playing field littered with broken egos and thwarted ambition.

NYT:
With annual tuitions that can exceed $28,000, these liberal-leaning schools have long brimmed with the scions of senators, representatives, financiers, diplomats, scholars, lawyers, journalists and even a few American presidents…The school competition has transfixed a city where high-profile personalities and institutions often place a premium on access to political power.

Says Feld: “Does the Times think it is above crediting the Atlantic?

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