After being accused by Radar magazine of stealing an article, the Chilean magazine Cosas said it had been hoodwinked by a reporter and had withdrawn the issue from newsstands.
Radar’s March/April issue cover article, “Toxic Bachelors,” depicted celebrities as cads; an article in the April issue of Cosas, “Solteros Tóxicos,” featured the same celebrities behaving boorishly and included what appeared to be direct translations from Radar’s article.
The Cosas article was published under the byline Manuel Santelices.
In a letter to Radar dated May 8, Carlos Alberto Reyes, a Chilean lawyer representing Cosas, said that Mr. Santelices “did not warn of any similarity of his work with other publications.”
He added that since the journalist had contributed reliably to the magazine for more than 25 years, “we did not doubt that his work fully responded to the upright norms always practiced by Cosas.” The magazine was willing to pay Radar the market price for the article, Mr. Reyes wrote.
Four days after Mr. Reyes faxed his letter, Mr. Santelices was still listed on the Cosas Web site as its New York correspondent. Neither the magazine’s executive editor, Mónica Comandari Kaiser, nor Mr. Reyes returned calls seeking comment about the status of Mr. Santelices, who does not have a published New York number.
Radar’s editor, Maer Roshan, said he was satisfied that the situation “has come to an amicable end.”
Other letters to Radar concerning the “Toxic Bachelors” article have been less amicable.
Lawyers representing two of the bachelors in the article, the talk-show host Charlie Rose, and Revlon’s chairman, Ronald O. Perelman, sent Radar a letter detailing grievances, according to Scott P. McBride, a Chicago lawyer who represents Radar.
The letter from Mr. Rose’s lawyer, David Boies, is reprinted in the current May/June issue. In the letter, Mr. Boies demands a retraction for inaccuracies, particularly a claim that Mr. Rose fondled a married woman. An editors’ note said the magazine had double-checked its source and would not retract the passage.
