Scribe claims NYT’s ex- editor plagiarised material for her book
New York: Former New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson is facing allegations that she lifted material from other sources for her new book, Merchants of Truth.
A Twitter thread posted Wednesday by Vice correspondent Michael Moynihan lists several examples of passages in Merchants of Truth: The Business of News and the Fight for Facts that closely resemble material in the New Yorker, Time Out and other publications.
Released this week, Merchants of Truth is a critique of the news business focused on two longrunning newspapers, the Times and the Washington Post, along with Vice and fellow digital company BuzzFeed.
Appearing Wednesday night on Fox News, Abramson disputed the allegations, saying: “All I can tell you is I certainly didn’t plagiarise in my book and there’s 70 pages of footnotes showing where I got the information.”
Writers are generally expected to credit their sources directly in the body of the text if the material is similar.
Abramson did not immediately return phone and email messages from the Associated Press seeking comment. A Simon & Schuster spokesman had no immediate comment.
◗ Appearing Wednesday night on Fox News, Abramson disputed the allegations, saying, ‘ All I can tell you is I certainly didn’t plagiarise in my book and there’s 70 pages of footnotes showing where I got the information.’
Abramson wrote for the Times and the Wall Street Journal among others before becoming the Times’ first female executive editor in 2011. She was fired three years later after frequently clashing with fellow staff members. She currently teaches creative writing at Harvard University.
Her previous works include Strange Justice, a book about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas that was co- written by Jane Mayer.