We were surprised to open up Monday’s Minneapolis Star-Tribune to see Jon Tevlin’s article on religion in the workplace.
Surprised, because it was very similar to a feature story that was on
the cover of the New York Times Magazine about a month ago. We’d
noticed Russell Shorto’s feature, not only because it was a compelling
cover story, but because its main subject was a small bank in outstate
Minnesota. Also because the photographs, taken by white-hot Minneapolis
photographer Alec Soth, were wonderful.
We’ve already commented recently
on the phenomenon of follow-on news stories: The New York Times or the
Washington Post do the heavy-lifting on a story, get all the glory for
the scoop, and when the parade has passed, all the local papers shuffle
along shoveling up the remainders, maybe a little ashamed that someone
in Manhattan managed to break a local story under the noses of a whole
newsroom full of local reporters.
Tevlin does acknowledge the
source of his interest in Riverview Bank, after a fashion. Near the end
of his piece, he notes that Riverview Bank, on its website, claims to
have converted Times “freelancer” Shorto during an “interview for a
newspaper article.” (Shorto denies this.) When we emailed Tevlin about
his follow-on article, he told us there were lots of other interesting
loose ends to tie up in the Riverview Bank story, and he was onto them
the day after the Times article appeared. The St. Paul Pioneer-Press,
in the person of business reporter Dave Beal, was also on the story.
They published their own follow-on November 11.
There is nothing
wrong with this practice per se. While we don’t want to inflame
professional jealousies, it would be nice if writers acknowledged where
they get their story ideas, particularly if it’s from other writers. It
is merely vanity that prevents someone from writing “as first reported
in the New York Times.” But this sort of story poaching goes on all the
time; local daily newspapers are especially bad about doing it to
nationals, weeklies, and monthlies. They have done it to us here at The
Rake. (We’ve already given up hope of ever working elsewhere in this
town. Funny how if you write about media in New York, you’re guaranteed
a job practically for the rest of your life. If you write about media
in the Twin Cities, you’d better keep Monster.com bookmarked.) For our
own part, we admit to being allergic to a story if it has appeared
anywhere else our esteemed readers may have been exposed to it. This
falls under the principal of giving your readers a little credit. And,
as we love to point out, a newspaper article and a magazine story are
two very different animals. Tevlin’s story was different from Shorto’s,
though it was clearly provoked by it.
Still, we were surprised that the Star-Tribune photographs
were so similar to Alec Soth’s. One Strib image depicted the exact
scene as the shot on the New York Times Magazine’s cover: An office
wall with a handsome painting that shows one modern businessman
introducing another businessman to the robed and haloed Jesus Christ,
as if to say,”I’d like you to meet my boss, the Son of God.”
The
striking similarity in the photographs seemed a breach. Were we being
naive? We can see how you might make the argument that, just as
Riverview Bank is sitting out there in the public domain for anyone to
write about, their office interiors and personnel are not themselves
copyrighted. And given that Tevlin’s lead specifically refers to this
painting, it falls under the definition of pure documentary
photography, right?
We don’t know. It doesn’t seem possible that
Stormi Greener, an excellent photographer in her own right, was unaware
of Soth’s photos when she shot hers for the Star-Tribune. To our eye,
it seems obvious that someone asked her to take precisely the same
pictures Soth had taken for the Times magazine— photos that are
undoubtedly under license and embargo, and not therefore available to
the Star Tribune or anyone else. You look and see what you think: Here is Soth’s photo for the Times, and here is Greener’s.
We
got ahold of Alec Soth in Paris, and he was a little surprised. “Wow,
that is quite similar,” he said. But he was willing to believe that it
was a coincidence—and that probably an editor at the Star-Tribune
should fall on the sword for this. (We know from experience: It is
ALWAYS an editor’s fault!) Jon Tevlin told us he thought you could send
dozens of photographers to Riverview Bank and they’d have taken the
exact same photo. The Jesus-in-the-executive-suite artwork is a “no
brainer,” he said. Times magazine editor Gerald Marzorarti politely
declined to comment, and Greener has not answered a call and an email.
This
photographic facet of the follow-on story undoubtedly falls into a grey
area, and maybe it illustrates the difference between fine art
photography and photojournalism. Soth’s photo is striking in part
because it is so artful, whereas Greener’s has a solid if unremarkable
gravity as photojournalism—and it’s almost the same picture!
But
it’s the art within the art. When we first saw the cover of the Times
Magazine, we were convinced that a Times art director had pulled off an
amazing illustration. Indeed, the point of both the Soth and the
Greener photos was actually to reproduce the astonishing piece of
framed, evangelical art, in situ. Perhaps the real injured party here
is Nathan Greene. He is the formerly anonymous born-again capitalist
who was responsible for painting “The Senior Partner.” He’ll
undoubtedly get his reward—and maybe his copyright—in the next
world.—The Editor in Cheese
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