Jayson Blair, The Sequel

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/malkin200312171508.asp

The hotshot LeDuff is now in hot water over his cribbing of anecdotes from someone else's book about kayaking down the Los Angeles River for his own Page One fluff story about — you guessed it! — kayaking down the Los Angeles River. An embarrassing correction published in the New York Times on Dec. 8 explained:

An article last Monday about the Los Angeles River recounted its history and described the reporter's trip downriver in a kayak. In research for the article, the reporter consulted a 1999 book by Blake Gumprecht, "The Los Angeles River: Its Life, Death, and Possible Rebirth." Several passages relating facts and lore about the river distilled passages from the book. Although the facts in those passages were confirmed independently-through other sources or the reporter's first hand observation-the article should have acknowledged the significant contribution of Mr. Gumprecht's research.
Gumprecht, an assistant professor of geography at the University of New Hampshire and a former newspaper reporter, told Slate's Jack Shafer he was "fairly shocked" by the similarities between his book and the Times's story, and that LeDuff's borrowing went beyond accepted journalistic practices.

Bonehead!