Everyone’s Talking Plagiarism
So you might remember the little spat between Time and The Atlantic over some awfully similar cover choices. Or recall how lately Barack Obama seems to be striking a similar pose on a number of magazine covers. Now comes word that not only is the New Yorker using a similar picture to that of the National Review in their current profile of political consultant Roger Stone, the Review’s blog The Corner is accusing New Yorker writer Jeffrey Toobin of plagiarizing entire passages from a piece the Review ran on Stone last year.
The similarities are striking, the most egregious of which is a device Labash uses throughout his piece. He repeatedly breaks up anecdotes with “Stone’s Rules” — things like “Admit nothing, deny everything, launch counterattack,” as well as “White shirt + tan face = confidence.”Says Gawker about the debacle:
We guess that’s true, if you consider it plagiarism to quote the well-rehearsed quotes of a veteran quote whoreCoincidence? We’re not sure. But all things considered, our money’s probably on David Remnick.
UPDATE: Toobin responds.
Jeffrey Toobin responds to The Corner via email to accusations of plagiarism.
I just saw Kathleen Parker’s post about my New Yorker piece about Roger Stone and Matt Labash’s earlier articles about him in The Weekly Standard. As I read Parker, the gist of the complaint against me is not plagiarism (because there was none), but discourtesy — that is, it would have been appropriate for me to offer a hat-tip or shout-out to Matt’s work. On balance, I think Parker is right; I should have acknowledged Matt’s articles, which I did read and enjoyed a great deal. So let me take this opportunity to apologize to Matt and The Weekly Standard.
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