Zakaria Suspended After Acknowledging Plagiarism

Posted on Aug 10, 2012

Flickr/World Economic Forum

Fareed Zakaria, shown here speaking at the World Economic Forum annual meeting in 2011.

Fareed Zakaria, a CNN host and editor-at-large for Time magazine, has been suspended by both news organizations after he admitted to plagiarizing parts of a story from The New Yorker. Zakaria apologized once the allegations came to light.

He said in a statement: “Media reporters have pointed out that paragraphs in my Time column this week bear close similarities to paragraphs in Jill Lepore’s essay in the April 23rd issue of The New Yorker. They are right. I made a terrible mistake. It is a serious lapse and one that is entirely my fault. I apologize unreservedly to her, to my editors at Time, and to my readers.”

The incident with Zakaria comes just weeks after another journalism scandal, this one also involving The New Yorker. Newly hired writer Jonah Lehrer admitted to self-plagiarizing from his earlier articles, and also to making up quotes from music legend Bob Dylan in his latest book, “Imagine.” He subsequently left the magazine.

—Posted by Tracy Bloom.

The Guardian:

Zakaria, who writes columns for Time and hosts a CNN television show, had written an article for the magazine on the issue of gun control after the recent mass shootings in Colorado. A short version also appeared as a blog post on CNN’s website.

However, several blogs, such as conservative media watchdog Newsbusters and National Review online, spotted similarities between parts of Zakaria’s column and a piece on the same topic in an April issue of The New Yorker.

The paragraphs in question largely involved descriptions of historical events and context about gun control in America and do not seem anywhere near as serious as other famed plagiarists – such as Jayson Blair at The New York Times and Stephen Glass at The New Republic who made up entire quotes, people and incidents.

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