Vice Reporter Calls Out Ex-NY Times Editor Jill Abramson For Plagiarism in New Book
Vice News Tonight correspondent Michael Moynihan is calling out former executive editor of The New York Times Jill Abramson out for what he says are “enormous factual errors, other cribbed passages, single or unsourced claims” found in her new book, Merchant of Truth.
Moynihan starts off by saying he read the galley copy and spotted an egregious error about his colleague, Arielle Duhaime-Ross.
She fixed it.
But it did not end there.
He also noted there were not just mistakes but parts that were lifted from other people’s work.
*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.
— Michael C Moynihan (@mcmoynihan) February 6, 2019
Those cribbed lines appeared in the final book, not the galley.
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 https://t.co/hx0XcyZ89k pic.twitter.com/qroN59gyVk
— Michael C Moynihan (@mcmoynihan) February 6, 2019
Moynihan gave examples.
This passage, on former Vice News editor Jason Mojica, is lifted from a 2010 Time Out magazine piece, with small modifications: https://t.co/csNoONZQhX pic.twitter.com/aiQzwKEStl
— Michael C Moynihan (@mcmoynihan) February 6, 2019
This passage, on former Vice News editor Jason Mojica, is lifted from a 2010 Time Out magazine piece, with small modifications: https://t.co/csNoONZQhX pic.twitter.com/aiQzwKEStl
— Michael C Moynihan (@mcmoynihan) February 6, 2019
This paragraph can be sourced to two places: a *masters thesis* and a 2013 New Yorker piece by Lizzie Widdicombe https://t.co/ZWX5RgKxlahttps://t.co/Ux6gdDO9Qg pic.twitter.com/tSIKyRoKDP
— Michael C Moynihan (@mcmoynihan) February 6, 2019
This example is from one source–the New Yorker again–though the two sentences are separated by a page.https://t.co/Ux6gdDO9Qg pic.twitter.com/m3dnsQaOmv
— Michael C Moynihan (@mcmoynihan) February 6, 2019
Here Abramson–in a treatise on journalistic ethics–copies a passage from…the Columbia Journalism Reviewhttps://t.co/mZZlA4odqw pic.twitter.com/gZVxQ1dc3Z
— Michael C Moynihan (@mcmoynihan) February 6, 2019
He added the mistakes that he tweeted out were not isolated incidents. There was other stuff too.
There’s lesser stuff too; still problematic. At various points in Merchants of Truth, rather than toil in the archives, reading old issues of the magazine or watching old Vice videos, Abramson liberally borrows from those who have: https://t.co/Ux6gdDO9Qg pic.twitter.com/mEvufhFJ3J
— Michael C Moynihan (@mcmoynihan) February 6, 2019
The Vice correspondent then stressed that after all that Abramson ends her book by wagging her finger at other journalists.
The book ends with a final wag of the finger, reminding me that my colleagues apparently don’t possess “the expertise to compete on the biggest news stories.” If Abramson is the arbiter of ethics & expertise, I think we’re doing just fine.
— Michael C Moynihan (@mcmoynihan) February 6, 2019
Abramson’s book, published by Simon and Schuster, just hit the shelves.
She has not yet responded to Moynihan’s claims.
UPDATE: Abramson denied the claims on Fox News Wednesday evening.
[featured photo via Getty Images]
Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.com
