The New York Daily News on Tuesday fired an editor after unearthing a pattern of deletions that made it appear as if a columnist had plagiarized work from multiple news outlets.
In an unusual episode in the annals of journalism controversy, Daily News editor Jim Rich announced the firing of the unnamed editor for serial attribution-removal after a brief plagiarism controversy engulfed senior justice writer Shaun King.
Citing a “series of egregious and inexplicable errors” in a statement to CNN, Rich justified the decision to fire the editor, whom he says deleted attribution over a period of three months:
On at least three separate occasions, the editor deleted attribution that made it appear passages from Shaun King’s columns were not properly credited. These mistakes are unacceptable and the editor in question has been fired. Because of the recurring nature of this editor’s specific mistakes, we are currently reviewing all of the columns he edited. Because of the subject matter that Shaun tackles as senior justice writer, he faces intense — and often unfair — scrutiny. To suggest — as many already have — that Shaun has done anything wrong here, is completely inaccurate.
The controversy began earlier Tuesday, when Noah Shachtman, the executive editor of The Daily Beast, accused King of lifting passages from a story about the death of a prison inmate written by Daily Beast staffer Kate Briquelet. In an interview with POLITICO Media — and in several mocking tweets — Shachtman accused King of plagiarizing two paragraphs from Briquelet’s story.
Wow, @NYDailyNews. https://t.co/56eo4Pwr0ohttps://t.co/oz2rir5OQw
Not even a link to the original piece? Come on.
— Noah Shachtman (@NoahShachtman) April 19, 2016
It gets worse. Looks like @NYDailyNews ripped off our story word-for-word. https://t.co/piyl992bCJ
— Noah Shachtman (@NoahShachtman) April 19, 2016
Dude. Don't make it worse for yourself. You even copy-pasted our typo. "sheriff office's appeared to disagree." https://t.co/JOYn0aKhUM
— Noah Shachtman (@NoahShachtman) April 19, 2016
"And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."
— Noah Shachtman (@NoahShachtman) April 19, 2016
"When I find myself in times of trouble // Mother Mary comes to me // Speaking words of wisdom, let it be."
— Noah Shachtman (@NoahShachtman) April 19, 2016
King responded on Twitter, initially defending the verbatim language by noting that the identical passages were quoted. He then tweeted images of an early draft of his story that showed he originally attributed the language to The Daily Beast.
Amid the controversy about lifted language from The Daily Beast, Mediaite reporter Alex Griswold unearthed what appeared to be an instance of cribbing from FiveThirtyEight, ESPN’s numbers-focused website examining sports and politics. King said that, too, could be chalked up to editor error.
3. Here is where I properly attributed to @FiveThirtyEight. Notice I link, credit them, and include block quotes. pic.twitter.com/wWFJLAEeJX
— Shaun King (@ShaunKing) April 19, 2016
Shortly thereafter, Rich took to Twitter to support King’s side of the story, confirming that an earlier draft of the article was attributed to The Daily Beast.
@ShaunKing @NYDailyNews It was a mistake by an editor. The attribution has been reinstated. The unedited version attributed Kate, The Beast
— Jim Rich (@jimrichNYDN) April 19, 2016
The hubbub triggered a review into King’s work that concluded with the canning of an unidentified editor. An editor’s note has been appended to King’s column correcting the record.
Editor’s Note: An editing error mistakenly removed attribution to a story originally published by The Daily Beast. The mistake has been corrected. The News regrets the error.
