Former NYT Editor Got a Million Dollars for a Plagiarized Book on Ethics

Fox News host Martha MacCallum finished up an interview with former NY Times editor Jill Abramson on Wednesday’s “The Story With Martha MacCallum” by bringing up claims that just surfaced on Twitter that parts of her new book “could be plagiarized.”

Ironically, it’s titled, Merchants of Truth. It’s a book on ethics and she received an advance of one million dollars for it from Simon & Schuster. It’s riddled with factual errors and steals from other writers without crediting them. She somewhat trashes Vice and it is a Vice correspondent who uncovered the errors and plagiarism — if his evidence is accurate. It sure looks accurate.

MacCallum showed side-by-side excerpts of the alleged “plagiarized passages” next to the originals. They are almost exactly the same. She didn’t even bother to rewrite them. Maybe she has a photographic memory.

“Vice News Tonight” correspondent Michael Moynihan has tweeted the passages that he says she lifted.

Ironically, she 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, Moynihan tweeted.

In our opinion, she is toast and so is her book.

In the video, as the affected Abramson is confronted, her response is remarkable, and not in a good way.

She says she didn’t incorrectly footnote when MacCallum gave her that for an excuse, but even if that is the problem, she used the exact wording.

Watch:

Look at the tweets and see what you think

So…Jill Abramson’s book has finally hit bookstore shelves. A few weeks ago, reading a galley copy, I noticed an egregious error about my colleague @adrs. She tweeted it out, a shit storm followed, Abramson corrected the mistake.

— Michael C Moynihan (@mcmoynihan) February 6, 2019

*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

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

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

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

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

There’s plenty more–enormous factual errors, other cribbed passages, single or unsourced claims–but this should give a sense.

— Michael C Moynihan (@mcmoynihan) February 6, 2019

HERE SHE IS WAGGING HER FINGER

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

A PLAGIARIZED BOOK ON ETHICS

Simon and Schuster stupidly paid a million dollars for this disastrous book. If these obvious examples of plagiarism aren’t enough and they require more examples of egregious mistakes and secondary source…ummm…cribbing, I’ll happily provide them. https://t.co/DbV3dkgjni

— Michael C Moynihan (@mcmoynihan) February 7, 2019

PowerInbox