Multiple sources alleged on Wednesday that former New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson violated journalistic ethics by plagiarizing their work in parts of her new book, “Merchants of Truth.”
Vice News Tonight correspondent Michael Moynihan tweeted out a thread that included several “plagiarized passages.” It began by noting that Abramson had been forced to correct an error about fellow Vice correspondent Arielle Duhaime-Ross several weeks prior.
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
Then, Moynihan went to work. (RELATED: Watch The Look On Former NYT Editor’s Face When News Breaks On Live TV That She Allegedly Plagiarized)
*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
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
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
He ended by claiming there are “plenty more.”
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
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
Later Wednesday night, author and journalist Ian Frisch claimed Abramson plagiarized him “seven times.”
THREAD: Jill Abramson plagiarized me at least seven times in her new book, Merchants of Truth.
— Ian Frisch (@IanFrisch) February 7, 2019
First, some background: I ran my own magazine from 2011 to 2014, because there were no jobs and I need to write and try to progress. I ran Relapse Magazine literally out of my bedroom. I worked nights at a hotel to fund it. I wrote a profile of Thomas Morton in 2014.
— Ian Frisch (@IanFrisch) February 7, 2019
— Ian Frisch (@IanFrisch) February 7, 2019
— Ian Frisch (@IanFrisch) February 7, 2019
— Ian Frisch (@IanFrisch) February 7, 2019
— Ian Frisch (@IanFrisch) February 7, 2019
— Ian Frisch (@IanFrisch) February 7, 2019
— Ian Frisch (@IanFrisch) February 7, 2019
“Shame on you, Jill. Shame on you,” Frisch wrote.
I’m just…I don’t know. Devastated? This is just crazy. I’m just showing these screenshots so people know. I have articles to write and a book coming out in three weeks, so I have bigger shit to worry about. But shame on you, Jill. Shame on you.
— Ian Frisch (@IanFrisch) February 7, 2019
Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum confronted Abramson about the allegations Wednesday night, to which Abramson responded, “I certainly didn’t plagiarize in my book. There are 70 pages of footnotes showing, you know, where I got the information.”
When asked if it could have been a “footnote issue,” Abramson replied, “No, I don’t think it’s an issue at all.” Abramson maintained that she stayed behind her work “100 percent.”