Did the NY Observer plagiarize a Radar trend story?

(Image: myownprivateidaho.com; Getty Images; outnow.com via Observer.com)

In today's New York Observer ran a saucy trend piece by Joe Pompeo titled "The Hipster Rent Boys Of New York," whose dek explains the story: "No more L train for us! In frigid economy, striving young men are turning to the oldest profession to make the city work for them."

In other words, prostitution among twentysomething, possibly-gay, Williamsburg, Brooklyn-inhabiting hipsters.

But a colleague of mine suggested that he had read this story somewhere else, not long ago...yes, that's it! It was in Radar's September issue, by Jessica Pilot, titled, "Secrets of a Hipster Hooker," with a dek that reads: "The author's friends are stylish, well-educated, and professionally successful young women in New York City. They also turn tricks on the side for $2,000 an hour. One day she decided to follow in their footsteps."

Now, the story isn't plagiarized in the most common sense, in that it's copied word-for-word. It's more an intellectual property plagiarism -- you know, running the same story in the same market in almost the same time frame (five months).

Any good editor would deny a reporter who came to him or her with this "idea." But did Pompeo copy Pilot? And who was reporting the story first?

Hard to say, and there are differences: Pilot's story is about women, whereas Pompeo's is about men. Pilot's story was written pre-recession; Pompeo's uses it as a motive for the prostitution.

So it's fair game, right?

Well, what if I told you they quote the same source as their token "expert"? (That would be Sudhir Venkatesh, a sociology professor at Columbia University whose expertise lies in high-end male and female escorts.)

What if they use the same obvious Eliot Spitzer-Ashley Dupre foil in the story?

Now what do you think?

For me, it's a little too close for comfort.

BREAKING: RADAR Magazine Folds, Again

Just like a few years ago, the re-re-relaunch of RADAR....has ended.

The New York Observer has it:

A source at the magazine and Web site Radar has just confirmed to Media Mob that the magazine is closing up shop, and that everyone has to clear their desks out by the end of the day. (Ed.: We'll keep updating in this space.)

We hear that there might a business arrangement to keep the web site afloat and that it will be sold to AMI.

Started by Maer Roshan in 2003, the magazine billed itself as a guide to pop culture, scandal, and style but soon folded. In 2005, Daily News owner Mort Zuckerman and a pre-scandal Jeffrey Epstein invested a reported $25 million in the magazine according to a report by Katharine Q. Seelye in The New York Times, but by December of that year, the magazine had been shut down again. By this time, Radar's ups and downs had become sport for Web site's like Gawker, which delighted in every gory detail of the magazine's demise.

There's a warning shot to all magazines and wannabe magazine journalists -- no one's safe.

UPDATE 12:30pm: The layoffs include former Gawker editors Alex Balk and Choire Sicha.

UPDATE 12:59pm: In another sign of the times, Radar's website survives.

(Ed's note: That's not the only sign. Another recent example is the e-mail newsletter of Ed2010, a great online resource for magazine jobs and internships. For a string of several days this week, the newsletter hasn't had a single lead on a job to post, and has been begging its readers for leads. An unprecedented event.)

Mitchel Stevens’ Guide to Employment and Robotics

Editor's Note: The following column is part of an anonymous weekly humor column chronicling the struggle of a new, young journalist out in the working world. You may find the author's previous posts in the archives. --The Ed.

The column’s a bit late these week, kids, due to the nasty weather and all. I know, you may be thinking, “how is that possible with sun and summer-like temperatures?” Especially when the stormy weather comes after my column usually runs.

And the answer for that is located somewhere underneath Fox’s corporate headquarters and Jann Wenner’s safe where the secret to rock and roll success is kept.

(Special note: don’t bother looking for it. It’s just a napkin Jann made at the age of 22. It’s just a venn diagram, a smiley face and the number for a pizza place on Lexington Ave.)

But anyway, it is cold and I have taken to staying inside my lavish cubby hole located somewhere between the BQE and a bottle. Of course, one of my daily rituals is refreshing my Bloglines quicker than you can say, “we regret to inform you…”

The other? Reading Gothamist. Particularly the interviews, since they can range from wonderfully short and (unintentionally) hilarious to the most recent one with Red Eye host Greg Gutfeld.

It is a semi-secret that most Gothamist contributors make a majority of their money at day jobs and write/blog second, which is great. (It’s also not a secret that Gothamist is stingier than Radar Magazine when it comes to reimbursement/payment. Not to mention a tad bit of payola. See below.)

But back to the interview at hand by Ben Kharakh. Now, Gutfeld’s hilarious. It’s worth it sometimes for me to be at the bar, try desperately to pick up a girl who has cable, go to her apartment and then cite performance anxiety*—all so I can then watch Red Eye at 3 a.m.

It’s just too bad that Kharakh either couldn’t get Gutfeld on the phone, couldn’t take the B/D/F/V to Sixth Avenue or schedule a good time to do anything but an e-mail interview. How can one tell it’s an e-mail interview?

An excerpt:

[Gutfeld:] It took three months to work out the kinks, but our show is now the most refreshing, smart and fun hour on television, and that includes Reading Rainbow. More juice? It's grape.

[Kharakh:] Having done this for over half a year, what are some tricks that you've picked up to make it through the day and in what way have you improved

First, there was no punctuation and that’s fine. Normally when one transcribes an interview, you forget things like that. Lord knows this one time I even forgot to do the Q&A. But completely ignoring such a flippant opening, or editing it out? Huh.

Gutfelt goes on, treating the “exchange” as if they were in his lavish, Swinging Sixties bachelor pad and not pounding this out on his office computer. There’s nothing wrong with the e-mail interview, but Gothamist has a long history with running it as if it was conducted in person and as if keeping the reader blind to the truth is ethically all right.

Not to mention they disable all comments for interviews.

But hey, how can I be upset at Gothamist? You can’t hate them. They’re adorable little puppy bloggers with cat fetishes and who dedicate their free time to a network of city-based blogs.

I mean, I’d just like to know if an interview was in-person or via email or phone or iPhone or iChat. That’s all, guys.

Anyway, sorry for pretending to be The Editorialiste today, guys. It is cold and I am mildly cranky.

Before I go, I also must say: Gawker’s Freelancer Action Unit. Wowie Zowie. Finally, I can get paid! No longer do I have to live in fear of unresponsive editors and payments departments! Gawker is back on my side!

…

Of course, Gawker is tied to Radar Magazine, who may or may not be still publishing, New York Magazine, slightly to Time Out New York, OK Magazine…um…you know, in hind sight, maybe it’s better NOT to talk to Gawker. Then again, each editor does make $323 billion dollars per year because bloggers are rich.

Speaking of, it’s time to go fight a cat for some breakfast.

-MS

*Note: Mitchel Stevens does not really suffer performance anxiety. He is a he-man woman hater with a cock that just won’t stop a sensitive writer and nice guy.