Bess Levin is Two Steps Ahead of You Fools

In the Times’ public editor’s column on the matter of their little plagiarist Zachery Kouwe, there is a fantastic moment in which a Local Blogger Makes Extremely Good. “In January, Dealbreaker, a competing Web site, scored a scoop by posting an internal Citigroup memo about a rumored joint venture. The same memo soon went up on [Times business blog] DealBook, complete with two minor alterations that Dealbreaker had inserted as a trap to catch competitors ripping off material without credit.” This is the most genius thing we have ever heard and this is so going to be house policy!

Dealbreaker’s editor, Bess Levin, posted a gotcha. I called and asked her what happened next. She said got a call from Andrew Ross Sorkin, the editor of DealBook, who explained that Kouwe had verified the memo with Citigroup and was going to get his own copy. Rather than wait, Kouwe grabbed it from her site, she said Sorkin told her. Sorkin immediately ordered an editors’ note inserted in the DealBook item that gave credit and explained what happened.

This is the greatest invention in the history of blogging and we should all bow down.