Jill Abramson accused of lifting material for her book "Merchants of Truth"
Former New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson is facing allegations that she lifted material from other sources for her new book, "Merchants of Truth." Abramson and her publisher promised to investigate. In an interview with NPR Thursday evening, Abramson admitted she "fell short," but said the lapses were "a minor part" of the 500-page book.
In a statement late Thursday, Abramson said was "up all night" going through her book as she takes "these claims of plagiarism so seriously." She wrote that "the notes don't match up to the right phrases in a few cases and this was unintentional and will be promptly corrected. The language is too close in some cases and should have been cited as quotations in the text. This, too, will be fixed."
"The book is 500 pages long. All the ideas in the book are orginial, all the opinions are mine," she wrote.
Vice correspondent Michael Moynihan posted a Twitter thread Wednesday listing what he said are several examples of passages in "Merchants of Truth: The Business of News and the Fight for Facts" that closely resemble material in The New Yorker, Time Out and other publications.
"I take seriously the issues raised and will review the passages in question," Abramson tweeted Wednesday night. "I endeavored to accurately and properly give attribution to the hundreds of sources that were part of my research."
Released this week and praised by Walter Isaacson and Gay Talese among others, "Merchants of Truth" is a critique of the news business focused on two long-running newspapers, the Times and the Washington Post, along with Vice and fellow digital company BuzzFeed.
Abramson has previously been criticized for alleged factual errors, with reporters at Vice and PBS among those faulting her. On Wednesday, she responded that some criticisms arose from Vice's unhappiness with "Merchants of Truth" and its portrait of hypocrisy and sexism. Abramson tweeted that her book offered "a balanced portrayal."
In a separate statement, publisher Simon & Schuster, a division of CBS, wrote that Abramson's book had given "an extraordinary degree of transparency toward its subjects; each of the four news organizations covered in the book was given ample time and opportunity to comment on the content, and where appropriate the author made changes and corrections. If upon further examination changes or attributions are deemed necessary we stand ready to work with the author in making those revisions."
Appearing Wednesday night on Fox News, Abramson initially disputed the allegations, saying: "All I can tell you is I certainly didn't plagiarize in my book and there's 70 pages of footnotes showing where I got the information." Writers are generally expected to credit their sources directly in the body of the text if the material is similar.
But Thursday, in an interview with NPR, she admitted she "fell short."
"In several of these cases, the language is too close for comfort, and should have been specifically cited in the footnotes correctly," Abramson told NPR. "Or put in quotations in the book."
"The problem here is that though I did cite these publications and try to credit everybody perfectly, I fell short," she said. "In the cases that Michael Moynihan cited, there isn't the correct page number for the credited citation. I'm going to fix those pronto and am determined to make my book flawless and will fix these things as absolutely soon as I can."
She maintained that the problems "are a minor part of the book."
For her book, Abramson was assisted by John Stillman, whom she credits with helping her with research, reporting and writing. Stillman, a freelance journalist who has written for Gothamist and The Awl among others, declined comment when reached by telephone Wednesday night.
Abramson wrote for the Times and the Wall Street Journal among others before becoming the Times' first female executive editor in 2011, one of journalism's most prestigious and influential positions. She was fired three years later after frequently clashing with fellow staff members, and currently teaches creative writing at Harvard University.
Her previous works include "Strange Justice," a book about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas that was co-written by Jane Mayer.
