CNN host and Time magazine contributing editor-at-large Fareed Zakaria was suspended by his employers on Friday after he acknowledged copying material for a recent column he wrote about gun control from another writer.
Time said it was suspending Zakaria for one month, “pending further review,” and CNN said it had also suspended him for his journalistic misstep. CNN put no time limit on its suspension.
The sanctions came after Zakaria issued a public apology for borrowing from a recent New Yorker essay about gun control for a column he wrote for Time this week.
“Media reporters have pointed out that paragraphs in my Time column this week bear close similarities to paragraphs in Jill Lepore’s essay in the April 23rd issue of the New Yorker. They are right. I made a terrible mistake,” Zakaria wrote in his apology.
“It is a serious lapse and one that is entirely my fault.”
Ali Zelenko, a spokesman for Time, said the magazine accepted Zakaria’s apology but felt compelled to act against him because he had violated its standards for all columnists.
“Their work must not only be factual but original; their view must not only be their own but their words as well,” Zelenko said.
CNN said its suspension of Zakaria was due to the fact that he wrote a blog post on CNN.com that was similar to his Time column and included “similar unattributed excerpts.”
Zakaria an Indian-born Muslim, studied at Yale and Harvard, was managing editor of Foreign Affairs magazine and then editor of Newsweek International for ten years before moving to CNN in 2010 to host Fareed Zakaria GPS.
Friday’s public embarrassment for Zakaria followed a recent scandal involving New Yorker staff writer Jonah Lehrer, who resigned on July 30.
Lehrer, a science journalist and author, quit after admitting that he made up quotes from legendary singer-songwriter Bob Dylan in his book “Imagine: How Creativity Works.”
In the Time incident, Zakaria wrote several sentences nearly word for word the same as an article published earlier in The New Yorker.
“Laws that banned the carrying of concealed weapons were passed in Kentucky and Louisiana in 1813. Other states soon followed: Indiana in 1820, Tennessee and Virginia in 1838, Alabama in 1839 and Ohio in 1859. Similar laws were passed in Texas, Florida and Oklahoma,” Zakaria wrote.
The New Yorker’s article read: “Laws banning the carrying of concealed weapons were passed in Kentucky and Louisiana in 1813, and other states soon followed: Indiana (1820), Tennessee and Virginia (1838), Alabama (1839), and Ohio (1859). Similar laws were passed in Texas, Florida, and Oklahoma.”
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