As reported by Zero Hedge, a review of the book by VICE correspondent Michael Moynihan noted that through just the first three chapters he noted that entire passages were lifted from previously published work (not Abramson’s) almost verbatim, and without attribution — which even the former NYT executive editor and current Harvard creative writing professor has admitted constitutes plagiarism.
In a 2008 Slate article, Abramson, then TIME's executive editor, said: "I think when you take material almost word-for-word and don’t credit it, it is [plagiarism].”
In a series of tweets, Moynihan supported his contention with examples.
“*All three* chapters on Vice were clotted with mistakes. Lots of them. The truth promised in Merchants of Truth was often not true. While trying to corroborate certain claims, I noticed that it also contained...plagiarized passages,” he wrote.
“The following examples from the final book—not the galley—are only from the Vice chapters (I didn’t check the others). So let’s begin...Here is Abramson on Gavin McInnes (whom she interviewed) and the Ryerson Review of Journalism,” he added.
https://twitter.com/mcmoynihan/status/1093290257896869888
“This passage, on former Vice News editor Jason Mojica, is lifted from a 2010 Time Out magazine piece, with small modifications,” he noted in a subsequent tweet, with the example, adding: “This paragraph can be sourced to two places: a *masters thesis* and a 2013 New Yorker piece by Lizzie Widdicombe."
https://twitter.com/mcmoynihan/status/1093290871016034307
You can click on the tweets to read additional examples contained in Moynihan’s thread.
So, Abramson’s busted? She says no. “I certainly didn't plagiarize in my book. There are 70 pages of footnotes showing where I got the information,” she said during a Fox News interview. (Related: The “mainstream” media tried to fact-check POTUS Trump’s State of the Union Address but failed miserably.)
‘I don’t record’
Initially, she claimed that Moynihan’s criticism was nothing more than anger expressed at what she had to reveal about Mojica. But later, in a series of her own tweets, she wrote on Twitter, “I endeavored to accurately and properly give attribution to the hundreds of sources that were part of my research," noting further, "I take seriously the issues raised and will review the passages in question.”
https://twitter.com/JillAbramson/status/1093351612649750529
https://twitter.com/JillAbramson/status/1093351878920994816
https://twitter.com/JillAbramson/status/1093352108018012160
Meanwhile, Simon & Schuster, Abramson’s publisher, defended her book in a statement saying that the tome gave "an extraordinary degree of transparency toward its subjects; each of the four news organizations covered in the book was given ample time and opportunity to comment on the content, and, where appropriate, the author made changes and corrections. If upon further examination changes or attributions are deemed necessary, we stand ready to work with the author in making those revisions.”
So, is the plagiarism the fault of John Stillman, a freelancer who Abramson credited with researching, reporting, and writing for the project?
That would be convenient, wouldn’t it?
But there’s more. Abramson said in an interview with The Cut that she doesn’t record interviews but instead relies on her “almost photographic memory” to recount what she is allegedly told.
“I’ve never recorded. I’m a very fast note-taker. When someone kind of says the ‘it’ thing that I have really wanted, I don’t start scribbling right away. I have an almost photographic memory and so I wait a beat or two while they’re onto something else, and then I write down the previous thing they said,” Abramson noted.
Given Moynihan’s accusations, this makes a lot of sense.
Read more about the dishonesty of the New York Times at NYTWatch.com.
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