UPDATE to original post: Agencia Andina has added links on its posts back to our original stories. Peruvian Times appreciates the corrective action.
Lima, March 31, 2010
Laura Vásquez
English Website Editor
Andina Agencia Peruana de Noticias
Dear Ms. Vásquez,
Once again Agencia Andina’s English Website has blatantly plagiarized a Peruvian Times article for use on its English language news page.
On March 30, at 3:37 a.m., Peruvian Times published a piece to the Web under the headline “INC says Machu Picchu entrance tickets will be rationed to avoid tourist hoards when rail service resumes.”
More than 12 hours after our story was uploaded and had been cached and picked up by Google News and other multiple Web sites, agencia Andina published a truncated version of the same story. Our material appeared word-for-word on your site and you even aped what I would characterize in hindsight as our rather poorly conceived headline: “Machu Picchu entrance tickets rationed to avoid tourist hoards when rail service resumes.”
I do not know who you have writing your English news copy, but that person or copy-writing service provider needs to be fired for this alarming breach of journalistic ethics.
This is not the first time this has occurred. We had this problem with your English language news page in January 2009. You did not respond to my complaint about it then. This time I request that you take immediate corrective action, either citing Peruvian Times with a hyperlink to our original story or removing your wholly pirated article.
Sincerely,
Rick Vecchio
Managing Editor
Andean Air Mail & Peruvian Times
——– Original Message ——–
| Subject: | Complaint about plagiarism on Andina English Website |
|---|---|
| Date: | Wed, 21 Jan 2009 11:30:29 -0500 |
Dear Ms. Vásquez,
After careful consideration, I feel I must bring a surprising breach of journalistic ethics that occurred on your site to your attention.
On Jan. 9, at 11:43 p.m., Peruvian times posted an article to the Web under the title “Planting trees to mitigate climate change: Peru to plant 40 million in 2009.”
The piece was a straight pickup of a story that had appeared in El Comercio, which was credited as the source in the lede. As per our policy, href links were also embedded in the text to the El Comercio source article.
The background and context contained in the story were original Peruvian Times material.
Approximately 10 hours after our story was posted, and cached by Google News, Andina’s English language site republished our article, word-for-word under the headline “Peru to plant 40 million trees in 2009 to mitigate climate change.”
The only changes made to the article were that the citation of El Comercio was changed to “a local newspaper,” the embedded links were removed, and Peruvian Times was not credited in any way.
I’m curious to know how this happened, and trust it won’t occur again.
Thank you in advance for your attention to this matter.
Best regards,
Rick Vecchio
Managing Editor
Andean Air Mail & Peruvian Times
