Former NYT Editor Jill Abramson Says She Will Review Her Book After Plagiarism Allegations
Suggested claims came from reporters with a grudge, before promising to review passages in question.
Kena Betancur/Reuters
Jill Abramson, former executive editor of The New York Times, has said she will “review” part of her new book, Merchants of Truth: Inside the News Revolution, after allegations of plagiarism late Wednesday. Vice News correspondent Michael Moynihan leveled the allegations against Abramson in a Twitter thread that featured numerous highlighted passages from Abramson’s book alongside passages from various publications that he says she lifted or improperly “borrowed” from. Moynihan accused her of lifting passages from The New Yorker and the Columbia Journalism Review, among other publications. Abramson later responded to the allegations on Fox News, saying “I certainly didn’t plagiarize in my book. There are 70 pages of footnotes showing where I got the information.” Hours later, she took to Twitter to address the issue again. “The attacks on my book from some @vicenews reflect their unhappiness with what I consider a balanced portrayal,” she wrote, before going on to say that she had “endeavored to accurately and properly give attribution to the hundreds of sources that were part of my research.” “I take seriously the issues raised and will review the passages in question,” she said. Her publisher, Simon & Schuster, echoed her latest comments in a statement to The Daily Beast, calling Abramson’s book “exhaustively researched and meticulously sourced.” While Simon & Schuster said the news organizations covered in the book were “given ample time and opportunity to comment on the content,” the publisher also said it would be willing to make revisions “if upon further examination changes or after fusions are deemed necessary.”
The attacks on my book from some @vicenews reflect their unhappiness with what I consider a balanced portrayal.
— Jill Abramson (@JillAbramson) February 7, 2019
I endeavored to accurately and properly give attribution to the hundreds of sources that were part of my research
— Jill Abramson (@JillAbramson) February 7, 2019
I take seriously the issues raised and will review the passages in question
— Jill Abramson (@JillAbramson) February 7, 2019
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Writer Ian Frisch also accused Abramson of using parts of an interview with Vice writer Thomas Morton that Frisch wrote up for his personal website in 2014. “She lifted my reporting without credit six times,” Frisch wrote in a Twitter thread late Wednesday. “I can't believe the people I looked up to would do something like this." Abramson did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Daily Beast.
*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
Here is @JillAbramson's response to @mcmoynihan's tweets regarding plagiarized passages in her book from FNC's "The Story with Martha McCallum" (cc @mattwelch @anthonyLfisher @kmele @brianstelter @greggutfeld) pic.twitter.com/dpGNGrW0sy
— Andrew Wimsatt (@ajwimsatt) February 7, 2019
— Maxwell Tani contributed reporting
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