LeDuff's Story on the Los Angeles River

After professor Blake Gumprecht alerted the New York Times to the similarities between his book about the Los Angeles River and Charlie LeDuff's Times story about the same subject, the newspaper asked him for a detailed list. What follows is Gumprecht's e-mail to Times editor Renee Murawski.

******

Renee:

In response to your request, I have listed below similarities between Charlie LeDuff's article about the Los Angeles River that was published in the Times of December 8 and my book, The Los Angeles River: Its Life, Death, and Possible Rebirth (Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1999). They are arranged in the order they appeared in the article. Some of the similarities are obviously more significant than others.

What is most striking to me is how many times Mr. LeDuff's article repeats information and ideas from a single page in my book—page one of the introduction. Coincidence? I think the preponderance of examples argues against that.

Blake Gumprecht

=========================

LeDuff: "It stretches 51 miles from its official beginning behind the bleachers at Canoga Park High School."
My book: "The river now officially begins … just east of the football field at Canoga Park High School." (p. 228). There's also a picture on p. 231 of the bleachers.

LeDuff: "It is often hidden from view by barbed wire, cinder blocks, hurricane fencing, and poisonous oleander bush."
My book: "Chain link fence and barbed wire line the river's fifty-one mile course. … Homes and businesses hide it from view with cinder block walls and tall shrubs." (p. 1)

LeDuff: "The river is crossed by more than 100 bridges."
My book: "Millions of people cross it every day on more than a hundred bridges." (p. 1)

LeDuff: "Some maps do not acknowledge (the river)."
My book: "Some maps of the region do not even show its course." (p. 1)

LeDuff: "About 80 million gallons a day flow along its channeled, concrete-line banks … fed by the sewage treatment plant near Sepulveda Dam…and street runoff."
My book: "Little water flows in its wide channel most of the year, and nearly all that does is treated sewage and oily street runoff." (p. 1) There is extensive discussion on page 127 about the role of the sewage treatment plant in supplying water to the river. I know of no other generally available source that talks about this aspect of the river like I do.

LeDuff: "The Los Angeles River has appeared in movies as a setting for car chases."
My book: The river "is probably best known these days as a place where Hollywood movie studios film high-speed car chases." (p. 1)

LeDuff: "Some have suggested turning the riverbed into a freeway."
My book: "The river's smooth, paved bed looks so much like a roadway, in fact, that every few years some politician or planner suggests that it be turned into one." (p. 2) The freeway proposal is discussed at length on pp. 273-275.

LeDuff: "Someone wanted to paint the concrete blue, to make it look more like a river."
My book: "A Los Angeles politician campaigned that, if elected, he would paint the bed of the Los Angeles River blue to make it look more like a river." (p. 1.)

LeDuff: "The river is where shopping carts go to die."
My book: "Discarded sofas, shopping carts, and trash litter the channel." (p. 1) "Shopping carts are especially abundant." (p. 238). There's a picture of a shopping cart on p. 239.

LeDuff: "The river still looks like a river in a few places."
My book: "In places, the river now acts and even looks like a river." (p. 245)

LeDuff: "Occasionally, a thrill seeker rides the rapids in his kayak."
My book: "Occasionally, a member of a local environmental group will canoe the river after a winter rain." (p. 236) There is a picture of a kayaker in the river on page 249.

LeDuff: "… clean clothes all washed in the river." "A society of transients lives on the riverbanks."
My book: "Homeless people live in cardboard shacks built atop the river's banks, bathing and washing their clothes in its contaminated water." (p. 236) There is a picture on the front cover of my book of homeless people washing clothes in the river.