BROADWAY—ENG 307
Famous (or Infamous) Journalistic Plagiarism Cases
Janet Cooke, The Washington Post (1980) — Cooke, 26, won a Pulitzer Prize for
"Jimmy's World," a story she fabricated about an 8-year-old heroin addict. Discrepancies
in her bio when the prize was announced raised suspicions about Cooke's integrity, and
after stubborn denials she finally confessed to making it all up. Cooke had fooled not only
the Pulitzer Committee but also The Post's top editors, including Watergate headliners
Benjamin C. Bradlee and Bob Woodward. The Post voluntarily returned the Pulitzer and
Cooke resigned. Years later she was found working in a retail store for $6 an hour.
Stephen Glass, The New Republic (1998) — At 25 and a rising star at The New
Republic, a liberal magazine covering political and social issues, Glass made up
quotations, stories, notes, interviews and entire events in a series of fraudulent but
entertaining and incisive stories (27 of 41 stories had provable fabrications). He also
wrote pieces for George, Rolling Stone and other publications. After TNR fired Glass, he
earned a law degree, with honors, from Georgetown University. In 2003, Glass published
The Fabulist, an autobiographical novel and was the subject of the film Shattered Glass.
Jayson Blair, The New York Times (2003) — Blair, 27, lifted parts of numerous stories from
other publications and made up facts in additional stories. Subjects included the Washington,
D.C., sniper shootings and the war in Iraq. On several occasions, Blair pretended to file stories
on location but actually was writing from his apartment. Blair resigned and became a life coach
and consultant in the field of mental health.
Recent cases
Jonah Lehrer, Wired.com (August 2012) — In one of the most unusual cases of plagiarism
and fabrication, Wired.com commissioned NYU journalism professor Charles Seife to examine
blog posts by Jonah Lehrer, a science writer, author of three books and former New Yorker
staffer. Wired severed its relationship with Lehrer after Seife “found problems in 17 of the 18
blog posts he reviewed,” according to the Poynter Institute’s Julie Moos. “In three of these posts,
Lehrer plagiarized from other writers, in five he used verbatim portions of press releases, and in
14 posts he recycled his own writing from previously published pieces.”
Sari Horwitz, The Washington Post (March 2011) — A veteran investigative reporter and
winner of two Pulitzer prizes, Horwitz admitted to lifting material from The Arizona Republic in
two stories she wrote about the gunman who shot Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.). Finding no
other evidence of plagiarism in past Horwitz stories, Post editors chose not to fire her—the
usual punishment for plagiarism—but suspended her for three months. Horwitz, a native of
Tucson and graduate of Bryn Mawr College and Oxford University, offered this apology:
“I am deeply sorry. To our readers, my friends and colleagues, my editors, and to the paper I
love, I want to apologize. Under the pressure of tight deadlines, I did something I have never
done in my entire career. I used another newspaper’s work as if it were my own. It was wrong. It
was inexcusable. And it is one of the cardinal sins in journalism. I apologize to the Arizona
Republic and its reporters and editors. I accept the punishment that The Washington Post has
given to me. And I am grateful the paper will allow me to return. I hope to come back a better
journalist and a better person.”
Kendra Marr, Politico.com (October 2011) — National political reporter for one of the top
online news sites, Marr resigned after a New York Times freelancer complained that Marr, a
recent graduate of Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, had plagiarized an
article on transportation policy. According to http://www.stinkyjournalism.org/, Politico found
"troubling enough elements" in Marr's piece to review all of her stories and discovered lifted
material in seven other stories. Twenty-something Marr, who had been chastised for
misrepresenting herself as a census taker while on a Medill assignment, resigned from Politico.
Steven King, The Irish Examiner (2011) — On Oct. 11, freelance columnist King
resigned after plagiarising [British sp] content from other publications, including the British
online magazine Spiked. King commented: "I must apologise wholeheartedly if any
material was unoriginal, any research was insufficiently thorough and if any attributions to
other authors were insufficient. I could make all sorts of excuses: the pressure of work; a
once fantastically happy marriage almost shattered by mental illness; the death of a
partner which is extremely difficult to accept. But the buck stops with me."
Jonah Lehrer,
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2012/08/jonah_lehrer_plagiaris
m_in_wired_com_an_investigation_into_plagiarism_quotes_and_factual_inaccuracies_.si
ngle.html
http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/top-stories/187310/why-slate-published-wireds-jonahlehrer-plagiarism-investigation/
Sari Horwitz, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-callahan/post-plagiarism-casewhat_b_837337.html
Kendra Marr, http://www.stinkyjournalism.org/editordetail.php?id=1706
MASSIVE LIST FIRST AMENDMENT CENTER
http://catalog.freedomforum.org/FFLib/JournalistScandals.htm
Glass, in lengthy interview with CBS news, describes how he covered his tracks by
creating fake notes, fake voicemail boxes, and fake websites.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/05/07/60minutes/main552819.shtml