NBC News Reveals Plagiarism Scandal; Discloses 11 Articles Were Improperly Sourced

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NBC News announced that they had unearthed repeated acts of plagiarism in their reports, and they are taking steps to address it.

NBC posted a public statement about the matter on Monday, explaining that 11 instances of improper sourcing were detected, and editor’s notes have been attached to the stories involved.

From the announcement:

To our readers:

A review by NBC News has found 11 articles written by a reporter over the last year that did not meet our standards for original material. The articles contained passages from other news organizations that were used without attribution.

In all cases, the passages were not central to the stories, but instead contained supplemental or background material that did not represent original reporting.

An editor’s note has been placed on each of the articles, and the passages that were plagiarized have been removed.

Maintaining the trust of our readers and viewers is essential to NBC News, and our work must always meet the highest standards of our profession.

NBC’s statement does not identify the offending reporter, nor any repercussions they may have received. Mediaite heard from a source within NBC News, however, who confirmed the reporter is former politics writer Teaganne Finn, who is “no longer with NBC News.”

The NBC source told Mediaite that Finn’s improper sourcing became known to the outlet when a routine editing process detected an initial incident. This led to a review of Finn’s other articles, revealing further instances of unattributed sentences being found.

“This is the first known instance of an incident of this nature occurring at NBC News,” the source added.

This post has been updated with additional information

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