NYT’s ex-Exec Editor accused of plagiarism in new book

WASHINGTON: Former New York Times Executive Editor Jill Abramson has been accused of plagiarising portions of her new book, "Merchants of Truth: The Business of News and the Fight for Facts".

She denied the allegations, outlined in a Twitter thread by Vice News Tonight correspondent Michael Moynihan, during an appearance on Fox News. On being asked if she had any comment on the numerous similarities detailed by Moynihan, Abramson said: "I really don't... 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."

Moynihan's tweets went viral and brought a lot of attention to Abramson's book, which was mired in controversy even before it was published this month. He said that there were "plenty more" examples of "enormous factual errors, other cribbed passages, single or unsourced claims", the Washington Post reported.

The thread, which focussed on three chapters Abramson wrote on the media company Vice, highlighted paragraphs containing language that appeared to be lifted from material published in Time Out, the New Yorker and the Columbia Journalism Review. Another journalist Ian Frisch also tweeted that Abramson lifted his reporting, without attribution, on six occasions throughout the book. When asked if there could've been an attribution or footnote issue in the book, the former Times editor replied: "No, I don't think this is an issue at all."