It’s one thing for a major metro daily to unwittingly (we hope) crib a story that a scrappy weekly publication wrote a couple years before. This happened just yesterday on the front of the P.I.’s metro section, where a story bearing the headline “Tree cutting for scenic reasons nothing new in Seattle” appeared. No, it’s not something new — and neither is a story featuring the same protagonist and much of the same info on the same topic: specifically, Nina Shapiro’s “Not So Clear Cut”, which ran in August 2006.But hey, shit happens, and it’s sort of flattering –although it’d be a lot cooler if credit was given where credit is due somewhere in the body text. But when shit happens a full 7-1/2 years after the Weekly writes essentially the same story, that’s cause for celebration (alarm?). Today, the P.I. has a front-page story on how “sleepy Ballard” is finally becoming “more trendy than affordable.” Which, of course, is precisely what SW wrote in a much more detailed, multi-sourced cover story in the year 2000. Glad to be of service, gang.