Page 93 of Cuts like a Knife
Only a name.
My name. At the bottom, after an em dash.
—Alexis Madison, Flash
My gut flooded with cortisol and adrenaline and I wobbled on my feet before falling heavily into my seat.
I hadn’t signed that piece. I definitely hadn’t signed that piece. It was just a cut-down.
And Rian had sent me the link to it. He’d said it was a wire story. Hadn’t he?
I opened my email and found Rian’s message from Friday afternoon. There it was, plain as day. He’d said yes, which admittedly, was somewhat ambiguous, but then he’d included the link. The link to Alan Segal’s piece in Sentinel.
I clicked through to Alan’s article just to double check. Had a wire service been credited with his piece? No. There was no mention of a wire service. It was just a regular byline, right at the top, like normal papers have. It wasn’t one of those “additional reporting by so-and-so” pieces. The byline was very clear. How did I miss that?
By Alan Segal
My mind raced. For a second, the whole world went white. Then my survival instinct kicked in. It was a big mistake, but unintentional. I could fix it. I just had to own up to it. Admit it. Admit that I f—ed up.
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re:
Alan,
I don’t know what to say except I’m sorry. I profusely, profusely apologize. I f—ed up. Somehow, we got our wires crossed over here. I thought I was cutting down a wire story, but that’s no excuse. It’s a huge f— up and it’s mine. The whole thing was a mistake and I take full responsibility. I’m going to talk to my editor right now. We’ll print a correction and an apology or something, but just on a personal level, I wanted to say I am so very sorry and this will never happen again.
Alexis Madison
Adele arrived right after I hit send.
“Jesus, Lex, what’s wrong with you?”
“Hm? What?” I must have looked ill. I felt ill. Then I remembered, Adele had plenty of reporting experience. She’d been at papers for years and years. Surely something like this must have happened before. It couldn’t have been the first time.
“Adele, I f—ed up. I need you to look at this,” I said297.
Minutes later, her eyes were wide. She sat down and took a deep breath.
“Okay, it’s going to be fine,” she said.
“It is?” I was so scared.
“Yeah, it’s a f— up for sure, but these things do happen. Why did you put your byline on it though? If you thought you were just cutting down a wire story?”
“I didn’t! I didn’t put anything on it. You know how the copy editors are.”
Adele nodded slowly. She knew I was right.
“Okay, that’s good. That will be in the record. Kelsang will be able to see you didn’t put the byline in yourself. A bigger problem is your response. Why did you respond to Alan?”
“To apologize! I mean, we ripped him off. I ripped him off. It was an accident, but it still happened. It looks like blatant plagiarism. Isn’t apologizing the right thing to do?”
“Not legally. You never admit guilt. It’s like, a liability thing. The burden of proof is on them to say we ripped them off. Or it should have been. It isn’t anymore.”
“So I shouldn’t have apologized?”
