The story about Alexandra Pascalidou’s “inspiration” of an L.A. Times article has now become an international embarrassment, as one of the major local blogs, L.A. Observed, today posted a comment.
It’s interesting that Pascalidou’s response hasn’t resulted in further questioning. She hasn’t admitted that she used or even read Hernandez’ article, when it is obvious to anyone who compares them that she must have. She is a regular columnist in Metro, the paper that recently launched a new concept with a daily correction column. Question is, will Metro do a follow-up, or was this initiative of transparency just lip service?
In contrast, when Resumé today revealed that Dagens Industri’s stock reporter Ingemar Carlsson was an active day trayder while he was giving stock advice in Dagens Industri, Carlsson published a sincere mea culpa and apologized. And he published it before Resumé managed to publish their scoop online.
My guess is that Carlsson will be back at DI after a short time-out, while Pascalidou’s “columnist brand” has been severely damaged. Especially since she has another crisis still waiting to explode once more, namely that she has been accused of using a ghost writer but denies it. Freelance journalist Isobel Hadley-Kamptz comments on her blog “since I know who the ghost writer is, I know she is lying“.