So, I just had an article get completed by somebody else, without my knowing. And I think they "borrowed" my research while doing so.

Frank Herbert wrote for the Santa Rosa Press Democrat for four years before he wrote Dune and became famous. I compiled all his articles from microfilm, 140 articles and another 200 sets of photos, and made a detailed list of each category. I gave a copy of this index to the editor who oversaw my internship, and he called it a very impressive set of research.

A couple months ago, anticipating the film release, I pitched that same editor my article idea, which includes books he wrote mentioning Santa Rosa, such as The Santaroga Barrier. He finally got back to me, and said a couple other departments might be more suited for that article, and he gave me their emails. He said he had already talked to his colleagues about it. When I emailed them, I mentioned that the other editor had referred me to them. I never heard back.

Yesterday, because the movie just came out, the newspaper ran a real quick article about how Frank Herbert used to write for them. It was short and sparse on details, but it mentioned a detail which only exists in my research.

The Press Democrat writer quotes an editorial he wrote, about there being two Frank Herberts, one of whom had just moved away when the author moved to town. This caused great confusion by people looking him up in the phone book, wanting to talk to the REAL Frank Herbert. The PD writer added that the other Herbert had moved to Eureka, which was not in the editorial FH wrote. In was in my independent research, and I had spent a long, long, time reading the old social pages until I found the snippet saying he had moved to Eureka. I dug for that specific detail for a long, long time.

A throwaway detail, really. But it shows she used MY notes to write her article, without citing it. The fact that I was an intern when I did all that research, and she got paid to "scoop" my article, irritates me on a professional level as well.

That article seemed lazy, too. And whoever wrote it didn't know that much about him or his books - one of which was named after that town.

I couldn't find her email on break, I'll contact her later and ask her if she accidentally plagiarized me.

I'm curious for advice what to do.
Serious suggestions are also appreciated.

Spice Must Flow: Rant about ubiquitous injustice

I was wrong and mistaken in my earlier post. I just got home and reread my notes and transcripts. The detail about Eureka was, in fact, in that editorial Frank Herbert wrote. I had been looking in the microfilm for that exact date, not the destination.

Still, all that reporter's data about Herbert's newspaper articles came directly from my research. The editor probably put my index into the Frank Herbert folder, which was recently used to hastily write that article.

Maybe if they had done an amazing job plagiarizing my research, shown they were a real fan or at least passingly familiar, I would feel honored instead of swindled.

Anyway, I just wanted to clarify that I was wrong and mistaken about that one specific detail, not to continue my rant.

But I ask my fellow writers:
Personal feelings aside, on a professional level do I have a legitimate complaint that another writer used my research without citing me? In a hasty, lazy article which I had pitched to them months ago?

The Ice Cream Man: Considering that this is probably the same editor that you pitched the idea to, he/she was probably the one who told the author to take your notes and write the article. So, chalk it up to experience, as in "don't trust your former employers to do the right thing. Right? Write?

It was a different editor, from a different section, not the one I spoke to directly. He was a good guy.

I'm not really interested in "legal" remedies, but on a different level. Several journalists have lost their careers by making up sources, or some other unethical behavior. While I'm not really interested in destroying this person's career, I'm trying to gauge the seriousness of the situation. 

My best option is to write an amazing article for the free weekly paper instead, which published my first FH article. However, I thought the article was better suited for the newspaper, and did not want to pitch it to two publications in the same town. Now I realize I should have.

Anyway, thanks for the feedback, everyone.