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Fareed Zakaria Suspended For Plagiarism: Apologizes For 'Terrible Mistake'

Kandahar

Kandahar

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Time editor-at-large and CNN host Fareed Zakaria was suspended from both places for a month on Friday after admitting to lifting parts of a story from the New Yorker.​

Fareed Zakaria Suspended For Plagiarism: Time Editor, CNN Host Apologizes For 'Terrible Mistake'
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This is really shocking and sad. I always liked his columns because he gave a lot of good insight into foreign policy, and never would've guessed that he'd be the type to do this. Hopefully he'll be back eventually, but this looks really bad and I think CNN and Time were right to suspend him.
 
That's...not cool. The average journalist's career would be over if he or she pulled a stunt like this.
 
StillBallin75 said:
That's...not cool. The average journalist's career would be over if he or she pulled a stunt like this.
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Agree, the guy should be gone. If you remember a young reporter from the NYT had the same problem and had to leave to paper. This guy is much more senior, it was clear what he did. This puts CNN on the spot. If they bring him back what does it say about the whole staff that works there, not fair to them.
 
Suspension isn't enough. The guy should be fired. This isn't the first time he's been accused of plagiarism. There was also an incident in 2009. Plagiarised content was not only found in the Times article, but also on a CNN blog he wrote, which has since been removed.

Most non-writers don't seem to think plagiarism is a big deal, but believe me it is a very big deal to writers and journalists. If either Time or CNN... or any nationally-recognized media... hires him again, they are basically giving tacit wink-nod approval to totally unacceptable and unethical behavior.
 
When I was doing my website thing every so often a bigger site such as gamespot owned by CBS or ign owned by news corporation would quote info I dug up without sourcing. It was annoying and flattering at the same time. In other businesses people steal all the time other wise you guys wouldnt have your android phones or windows computers. So I'm indifferent on it.
 
I'm not. Theft is theft.
 
Plagiarism isn't the same thing as theft - but it's a HUGE deal to anyone in the writing profession, no matter whether your a journalist or a scholar or a novelist. Passing off someone else's work as your own is a serious breach of ethics.
 
How dumb is that? From the New Yorker?
 
I didn't like him at first but he's grown on me. Kudos to time and CNN for giving him an appropriate punishment when so much of today's conventuals wisdom thins a god, hardworking person should always be fired at their first slip up.
 
Kandahar said:
This is really shocking and sad. I always liked his columns because he gave a lot of good insight into foreign policy, and never would've guessed that he'd be the type to do this. Hopefully he'll be back eventually, but this looks really bad and I think CNN and Time were right to suspend him.
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This is a "Terrible Mistake" like Hillary "misspoke" about being fired upon at the airport in Bosnia.
 
I really don't see how it matters if the overall idea made it to more people.
 
Its funny how this is seen as a cardinal sin, but planting lies and twisting facts and so on is not.....
 
PeteEU said:
Its funny how this is seen as a cardinal sin, but planting lies and twisting facts and so on is not.....
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It's why a lot of professional journalists today really look down on our cable news channels and view them as unprofessional, and they essentially have become merely newstainment organizations.
 
As much as I respect and admire Zakaria's books and insights, he should be severely punished for this act of literary theft. Apparently he's pushed the ethical envelope on this before as noted in the OP link:

This is not the first time Zakaria has come under ethical fire. Columnist Jeffrey Goldberg accused him of lifting quotes without attribution in 2009. He also caused controversy for his series of off-the-record conversations with President Obama, though he said they were no different than those the president held with any other journalist.
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JohnWOlin said:
When I was doing my website thing every so often a bigger site such as gamespot owned by CBS or ign owned by news corporation would quote info I dug up without sourcing. It was annoying and flattering at the same time. In other businesses people steal all the time other wise you guys wouldnt have your android phones or windows computers. So I'm indifferent on it.
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It's pretty much common practice for mainstream media to lift material from local media, blogs and press releases without reference or checking the facts. You don't think they fill 24-hour TV schedules, pages and pages on websites and print media with their own work do you? It seems like this guy's mistake was lifting from another mainstream source and he was unlucky enough to be picked up on it.

I'm most certainly not indifferent about it but I think it's a world-wide industry issue, not an individual one. Try to do anything about it though and you get a "freedom of the press" to the face.
 
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HonestJoe said:
It's pretty much common practice for mainstream media to lift material from local media, blogs and press releases without reference or checking the facts. You don't think they fill 24-hour TV schedules, pages and pages on websites and print media with their own work do you? It seems like this guy's mistake was lifting from another mainstream source and he was unlucky enough to be picked up on it.

I'm most certainly not indifferent about it but I think it's a world-wide industry issue, not an individual one. Try to do anything about it though and you get a "freedom of the press" to the face.
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Well to get to my original point, look at the Samsung vs Apple case. It's obvious Samsung borrows liberally from Apple but in the end their great ideas make it to far more people. Litigation and accusing others of stealing ideas as if though others may not have been able to conjure up similar ideas has its merits, but as consumers we lose if they are locked into the originators domain. Could you imagine if Ford was never able to mass produce automobiles or if
Toyota wasn't able to borrow ideas from Ford? We would live in a very closed and limited world.
 
JohnWOlin said:
Well to get to my original point, look at the Samsung vs Apple case. It's obvious Samsung borrows liberally from Apple but in the end their great ideas make it to far more people. Litigation and accusing others of stealing ideas as if though others may not have been able to conjure up similar ideas has its merits, but as consumers we lose if they are locked into the originators domain. Could you imagine if Ford was never able to mass produce automobiles or if
Toyota wasn't able to borrow ideas from Ford? We would live in a very closed and limited world.
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In terms of plagiarism, it's generally OK if you just borrow someone else's ideas (although depending how much you borrow them, it's an ethical gray area as to whether you need to cite them). But Zakaria seems to have actually tried to pass someone else's words as his own.
 
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StillBallin75 said:
Plagiarism isn't the same thing as theft - but it's a HUGE deal to anyone in the writing profession, no matter whether your a journalist or a scholar or a novelist. Passing off someone else's work as your own is a serious breach of ethics.
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I'll have to disagree that it's not the same as theft, because to me, it is theft of intellectual property. I've been plagiarized before in college, and I was infuriated by it. They got all the credit, all the praise, and advanced due to it, until an "anonymous tip" dropped the hammer on him. It was just a college thing then, but had this happened in a professional environment, he would have stolen my job by stealing my work. For that, I would have had his hands broken with a 5 lb sledge. I have absolutely no sympathy for plagiarists.
 
Kandahar said:
In terms of plagiarism, it's generally OK if you just borrow someone else's ideas (although depending how much you borrow them, it's an ethical gray area as to whether you need to cite them). But Zakaria seems to have actually tried to pass someone else's words as his own.
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I'm not saying he doesn't need to be punished but the only career he is hurting is his own. No harm no foul. I don't think the guy needs to be fired. Just to give another example from my experience, I gave a guy a copy of guitar hero to review and as I would read others reviews of the bigger titles I noticed he lifted literally word for word parts out of the included press release and another's review. I took the review down that night and had him correct it and post it the next day or I wouldn't give him review copies anymore. Simple solution.
 
They have to fire him. It would be like hiring a thief to be a bank guard. You would always suspect, never know, and never trust. All it took on his part was a simple reference. how can I read any of "his" work again? The job of a journalist is to deliver truth and facts. Do YOU trust a proven dishonest person for that task?
 
I'm sure they can find another ugly guy that has basic English speaking skills, to parrot their agenda to the public.
 
Who broke this story anyway?

Oh, that's right... It was NewsBusters.
 
Very disappointing. I always enjoyed his commentary (assuming it was really his!).
 
Kandahar said:
This is really shocking and sad. I always liked his columns because he gave a lot of good insight into foreign policy, and never would've guessed that he'd be the type to do this. Hopefully he'll be back eventually, but this looks really bad and I think CNN and Time were right to suspend him.
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Frankly, I've always felt he was little more than a conduit for the conventional wisdom at the time.
 
JohnWOlin said:
Well to get to my original point, look at the Samsung vs Apple case. It's obvious Samsung borrows liberally from Apple but in the end their great ideas make it to far more people.
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We're not talking about borrowing ideas. In this case (and regular media practice) this is about copying someone else's work pretty much word-for-word and printing it under your own name without any kind of credit to the original author or publication and presumably without checking any of the statements of fact (which I think is the more important aspect). If he'd taken the ideas expressed in the original article and put them in his own words, it wouldn't have been an issue.

JohnWOlin said:
Toyota wasn't able to borrow ideas from Ford? We would live in a very closed and limited world.
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The can (and do) borrow ideas. What they can't do is take a Ford car, stick an Toyota badge on the front and claim they designed and built the car.
 
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