Time magazine editor and CNN host Fareed Zakaria apologized on Friday for having plagiarized significant portions of an essay written by Jill Lepore in an April issue of The New Yorker. Zakaria had intended to use Lepore’s work for his own column on gun control that was to be published in the Time’s Aug. 20 issue.
NRANews.com first spotted striking parallels between Zakaria’s “The Case for Gun Control” and Lepore’s “Battleground America.”
The magazine released a statement, according to The Associated Press, saying, “what he did violates our own standards for our columnists, which is that their work must not only be factual but original; their views must not only be their own but their words as well.”
Zakaria, who has since come under fire from a vast array of media outlets, confessed his guilt in a statement issued on his Facebook page.
“Media reporters have pointed out that paragraphs in my Time column on gun control, a version of which was posted here on Facebook, bear close similarities to paragraphs in Jill Lepore’s essay in the April 23rd issue of The New Yorker,” he said. “They are right. I made a terrible mistake. It is a serious lapse and one that is entirely my fault. I apologize unreservedly to her, to my editors at Time and CNN, and to my readers and viewers everywhere.”
Immediately after Zakaria admitted his “lapse,” Time spokeswoman Ali Zelenko revealed that while the magazine accepted Zakaria’s apology, it would be forced to suspend his column for one month, “pending further review,” according to reports.
CNN released a statement saying the network “has suspended Fareed Zakaria while this matter is under review.”
-With Associated Press
