Fareed Zakaria Suspended for Plagiarism

[YankeeFan]

How dumb do you have to be to plagiarize from one high profile publication, for another high profile publication?

Time Magazine and CNN have suspended Fareed Zakaria for plagiarizing a portion of a column on gun control. He had apologized earlier today.

Zakaria's column, The Case for Gun Control, appears in the current issue of Time, dated Aug. 20. He borrowed several paragraphs from an April 23 New Yorker article on the National Rifle Association by Jill Lepore.

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2012/08/time-cnn-suspend-fareed-zakaria-for-plagiarism/1#.UCWS-UTgJQI

 

[lcjjdnh]

How dumb do you have to be to plagiarize from one high profile publication, for another high profile publication?

Time Magazine and CNN have suspended Fareed Zakaria for plagiarizing a portion of a column on gun control. He had apologized earlier today.

Zakaria's column, The Case for Gun Control, appears in the current issue of Time, dated Aug. 20. He borrowed several paragraphs from an April 23 New Yorker article on the National Rifle Association by Jill Lepore.

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2012/08/time-cnn-suspend-fareed-zakaria-for-plagiarism/1#.UCWS-UTgJQI

Perhaps I just overestimate his intelligence--which is possible, since he turns out dreck in the David Brooks and Tom Friedman mold--but my guess would be he must have interns help draft his column and he signed off on this without checking. He can't simply blame this on copy-and-paste--someone made a deliberate effort to change the words. And I simply can't imagine he'd think he'd get away with this.

But maybe he is dumber than I think. Too much time thinking about BIG!!!! IDEAS!!!!!

 

[Starman]

Firing offense. Hasta la vista.

 

[lcjjdnh]

Firing offense. Hasta la vista.

Yeah, but is that really a punishment for him? Writing for Time is just a small part of his enterprise. It will only really hurt him if the VERY SERIOUS PEOPLE stop listening to him after this.

 

[YankeeFan]

No mention of investigating previous work, to see if he's plagiarized anything else.

Isn't that standard procedure? Or shouldn't it be?

It's like they don't want to know.

 

[Michael_ Gee]

Part of the problem of the journalist-as-conglomerate business model. I've respected a lot of his work, but this is indeed a firing offense.

 

[Starman]

How hard is it, especially if you have a staff working for you, to say, "hey I think this article is really on the money. Sit down and write something LIKE it" ? And attribute.

I mean, ****, for 15 years now, everybody in the world has had computer search engines. You lift phrases and paragraphs, you are GOING to get caught. It's not "likely," it's a ******* lock.

 

[Tarheel316]

Firing offense. Hasta la vista.

Agreed. Why would he do that? Makes no sense.

 

[lcjjdnh]

Firing offense. Hasta la vista.

Agreed. Why would he do that? Makes no sense.

I think the key here is finding out whether he really did this. It's pretty egregious. Perhaps Zakaria asked an intern--either unfamiliar with plagiarism rules*, or lazy--to draft something, and submitted it to Time with throughly checking it.

* And you'd be surprised, but there are well-educated people that think they've properly paraphrased when they've changed a few words from the original.

 

[Tucsondriver]

All these high-profile plagiarism outings the last few years and the last few weeks in particular leaves me wondering if it's plagiarism that's more pervasive in the information age, or just that it's harder to get away with these days.

 

[Starman]

It's easier -- you have probably 95% of the news content of the entire nation available at your fingertips -- but it's also much harder to get away with than in the olden days.

Back in the olden days if somebody cared enough to search out out-of-town newspapers and crib somebody, the original author/victim might well never hear about it. Now all it takes is one person with a bug up their ass and 15 minutes on Google and most plagiarists are caught dead to rights.

 

[Michael_ Gee]

Not fired (yet). Suspended for a month. Time Inc. comes down firmly on the side of brand names rather than the integrity of their product. Then they wonder why no one buys it.
I miss journalism, but I'm also glad I'm out. I couldn't live with the obvious corruption now, I think.

 

[bpoindexter]

There sure seems to be many more of these happening, that's for sure. IDK, what gives?

 

[JimmyHoward33]

How do you get a high profile intern job with Fareed/Time if you don't know the rules? And how is him not supervising his own interns make it OK?

The worst part to me is this is basically a column.....he can't write his own opinion, be it from plagarism or interns doing it for him?

 

[maberger]

It's easier -- you have probably 95% of the news content of the entire nation available at your fingertips -- but it's also much harder to get away with than in the olden days.

Back in the olden days if somebody cared enough to search out out-of-town newspapers and crib somebody, the original author/victim might well never hear about it. Now all it takes is one person with a bug up their ass and 15 minutes on Google and most plagiarists are caught dead to rights.

stealing from out of town papers was all most sunday notes columns were into the 90s.

 

[lcjjdnh]

How do you get a high profile intern job with Fareed/Time if you don't know the rules? And how is him not supervising his own interns make it OK?

The worst part to me is this is basically a column.....he can't write his own opinion, be it from plagarism or interns doing it for him?

I never said it was OK if it was an intern--I just suggested it was a more plausible alternative. And I'd imagine it's quite easy to get a job as an intern without knowing the rules about plagiarism. Zakaria probably isn't asking you about it in an interview (assuming it was accident and not malicious).

 

[SportsGuyBCK]

Not fired (yet). Suspended for a month. Time Inc. comes down firmly on the side of brand names rather than the integrity of their product. Then they wonder why no one buys it.
I miss journalism, but I'm also glad I'm out. I couldn't live with the obvious corruption now, I think.

IMO, that's part of the problem with journalism (be it newspapers, mags, TV, radio or the Internet; it's a small part, but it seems to be growing) ... if you're a "star," the higher-ups allow you to get away with crap (see as a recent example the Asian-American journalist who will not be named) that would get a lower-level worker thrown through the door and under the bus ...

Again, just my opinion ...

 

[Bamadog]

I'm sorry, but when you're in big leagues, there's no excuse for that. Even w/o Google. He should be fired, but since he's a "star," he'll get a slap on the wrist. It's nothing more than petty thievery & Fareed stole from someone's work. It wasn't an "oversight."

 

[JimmyHoward33]

How do you get a high profile intern job with Fareed/Time if you don't know the rules? And how is him not supervising his own interns make it OK?

The worst part to me is this is basically a column.....he can't write his own opinion, be it from plagarism or interns doing it for him?

I never said it was OK if it was an intern--I just suggested it was a more plausible alternative. And I'd imagine it's quite easy to get a job as an intern without knowing the rules about plagiarism. Zakaria probably isn't asking you about it in an interview (assuming it was accident and not malicious).

I'd take it for granted as an interviewer that my intern candidates knew about the no-no's of plagiarism. It's a hot topic at the University/academic level too. I'd imagine though that a Time/Fareed internship is pretty competitive and would open some doors and that the kids would've had some J-school classes about not doing this sort of thing.

 

[lcjjdnh]

How do you get a high profile intern job with Fareed/Time if you don't know the rules? And how is him not supervising his own interns make it OK?

The worst part to me is this is basically a column.....he can't write his own opinion, be it from plagarism or interns doing it for him?

I never said it was OK if it was an intern--I just suggested it was a more plausible alternative. And I'd imagine it's quite easy to get a job as an intern without knowing the rules about plagiarism. Zakaria probably isn't asking you about it in an interview (assuming it was accident and not malicious).

I'd take it for granted as an interviewer that my intern candidates knew about the no-no's of plagiarism. It's a hot topic at the University/academic level too. I'd imagine though that a Time/Fareed internship is pretty competitive and would open some doors and that the kids would've had some J-school classes about not doing this sort of thing.

I would wager Zakaria hires kids from "elite" schools without J-school programs. And I know some bright, well-educated people that, surprisingly, think this is an OK way to paraphrase (as long as you cite, which was not done here).