People Magazine Stole My Story!

...which I stole from the Spanish edition of the Associated Press. But at least I credited them. Here's what happened.

It all started Thursday afternoon. I'd written a lot that morning, cooked lunch and was ready for a break. Then Giovanni calls to me: "I've got the perfect story. Shakira is for Obama." Oof. We write about anything involving Barack Obama and Colombia and just about anything at all involving Shakira, so this was a must. I sat down and knocked it out.

The next day it was linked by "The Most Visited Black Website In The World."

And if you're a snob like me and think capitalizing prepositions and articles is a little over the top, check out the headline it ran under: LATINA POWER!!! Shakira OFFICIALLY Endorses Barack Obama!!

Normally we get about 1,000 hits a day. But the link single-handedly brought 6,793 visits to the story. Counting all sources, the story, at last count, had been viewed 9,279 times--nearly nine times as many as our next highest.

One of those visitors, apparently, was from People Magazine. Their version is not a letter-for-letter reproduction. But I find it remarkable that they used an identical three letter opening. And the same exact second graf quote (which is likely an imperfect translation). And put in a biographical line that looks oddly like a paraphrase of a Bill Clinton quote that I had in the very same position. C'mon.

Now look who, of course, is on top in Google.