Mideast scholar and professor Fawaz Gerges told TPM in an email on Friday that he had no problem with the idea that journalist Fareed Zakaria had “borrowed heavily” from his work while writing about world affairs.
Gerges made the statement following allegations earlier in the day that the journalist had plagiarized from him as part of a 2011 book, “The Post-American World: Release 2.0.” The allegations were made by a pair of anonymous bloggers who this week have highlighted a total of 18 times that they contend Zakaria has plagiarized from others.
In his email, Gerges described the longstanding collegial relationship the two of them shared and emphasized he had given the journalist consent to cite him in Zakaria’s writings.
From Gerges’ email to TPM:
Over the last 13 years Mr. Zakaria and myself have often brainstormed about the jihadist phenomenon. We have talked at length about the drivers and motivation behind al-Qaeda and its affiliates. Time and again, he has highlighted my scholarship and I have never felt that he has short-changed me. I have given my consent to Mr. Zakaria to cite me.
I did read his book a while back and I feel delighted that he has borrowed heavily from my work.
Earlier on Friday, the bloggers who on Twitter go by @blippoblappo and @crushingbort wrote on their blog that Zakaria had “blatantly and repeatedly plagiarized” in his book.
The article was a follow-up to an initial slew of charges published by the duo on Tuesday. Zakaria strongly denied the allegations earlier in the week, saying the work in question were “facts, not someone else’s writing or opinions or expressions.”
Zakaria has not responded to TPM’s request for comment on Friday about the latest allegations.
I have given my consent to Mr. Zakaria to cite me
Oh hell, game over loosers.
Ahaha, except, you know, the fact that Zakaria didn’t actually cite him.
And the thing is, it’s mostly straight-up lazy writing. He’s not plagiarizing someone else’s analysis, he’s quoting someone who is quoting someone else, without bothering to reword paragraphs. You can hardly cite someone in that case, because you’re not citing something that they came up with themselves; you’re just directly lifting their recitation of quotes and such, including the wording around them. Basically writing a column around the core of facts and quotes found in another person’s material. Some of the stuff from yesterday I was more willing to give him a pass on (there’s only so many ways to quote numbers from a poll), but this is just stupidity on his part.
Did Zakariah cite Gerges or did he take his work without attribution?
Rand Paul said Zakaria can use his new definition of “plagiarism” if he wants to.
Unfortunately nobody went for it.