Newsweek Slaps Note About Plagiarism Accusations On All Zakaria Articles

Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria listens to a question from the audience during a conversation with Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari at the Council on Foreign Relations Friday, June 16, 2006 in New York. (AP Photo/Jason DeCrow)
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Newsweek responded on Monday to plagiarism accusations against its former columnist Fareed Zakaria by adding a disclaimer to all of his articles that appear on the magazine’s website.

The disclaimer, posted on Zakaria’s author page as well as beneath each individual article, noted that his work has come under scrutiny and that his contributions to Newsweek took place under a different owner.

Here’s the disclaimer:

Fareed Zakaria worked for Newsweek when it was under previous ownership. Readers are advised that some of his articles have been the subject of complaints claiming that they contain material that should have been attributed to others. In addition, readers with information about articles by Mr. Zakaria that may purportedly lack proper attribution are asked to e-mail Newsweek at corrections@newsweek.com

Newsweek posted the updates following a string of allegations by anonymous bloggers who go by the aliases @blippoblappo and @crushingbort. The pair has accused Zakaria of plagiarism in articles he wrote for Newsweek, Time magazine, and the Washington Post as well as in work he has done for CNN.

CNN and the Washington Post have defended the integrity of Zakaria’s work.

On Sunday CNN host Brian Stelter aired a segment on the allegations and said Zakaria’s show for the channel had “made some attribution mistakes.” Stelter stopped short of blaming Zakaria directly for the problems.

In 2012, Zakaria apologized for plagiarizing New Yorker’s Jill Lepore. The incident got him suspended from Time magazine as well as his show on CNN. He also volunteered to temporarily halt his column for the Washington Post for a month.

Newsweek’s updates came after a Twitter exchange on Friday, in which @blippoblappo tweeted at the magazine’s editor-in-chief Jim Impoco and brought up Zakaria’s work:

Impoco eventually stated he would investigate:

On Monday, Impoco offered another observation about the allegations, this time pointed at The Washington Post, which previously owned the magazine:

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