by Rodney Ho
Publisher‘s Note: Fareed Zakaria is host of CNN’s flagship international affairs program—Fareed Zakaria GPS, Editor at Large of TIME, a Washington Post columnist, and a New York Times bestselling author.  He was described in 1999 by Esquire Magazine as “the most influential foreign policy adviser of his generation.” In 2010, Foreign Policy named him one of the top 100 global thinkers. (More on his bio here.) Another important point is that he addresses hedge fund billionaire George Soros on a first name basis as “George”, member of Council of Foreign Relations and his mentor is Henry Kissinger. He is considered as a spokesperson for plutocracy.
Zakaria with his mentor, Henry Kissinger
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August 10, 2012 (TSR) – Time magazine Friday suspended journalist and CNN host Fareed Zakaria for a month after alleged plagiarism in a recent gun control column.

CNN, later in the day, also suspended Zakaria’s Sunday show “Fareed Zakaria GPS,” which focuses on international issues.

In a statement, CNN said: “We have reviewed Fareed Zakaria’s Time column, for which he has apologized. He wrote a shorter blog post on CNN.com on the same issue which included similar unattributed excerpts. That blog post has been removed and CNN has suspended Fareed Zakaria while this matter is under review.”

Time appended Zakaria’s formal apology at the end of the article:

“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 22nd issue of The New Yorker. 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 to my readers.”

Time then added this note:

“TIME accepts Fareed’s apology, but 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. As a result, we are suspending Fareed’s column for a month, pending further review.”

Mediabistro did a side-by-side sample comparison of a paragraph he wrote and one originally written by Jill Lepore. Here’s Zakaria’s:

Adam Winkler, a professor of constitutional law at UCLA, documents the actual history in Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America. Guns were regulated in the U.S. from the earliest years of the Republic. 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. As the governor of Texas (Texas!) explained in 1893, the “mission of the concealed deadly weapon is murder. To check it is the duty of every self-respecting, law-abiding man.

And here’s Lepore’s:

As Adam Winkler, a constitutional-law scholar at U.C.L.A., demonstrates in a remarkably nuanced new book, “Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America,” firearms have been regulated in the United States from the start. 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. As the governor of Texas explained in 1893, the “mission of the concealed deadly weapon is murder. To check it is the duty of every self-respecting, law-abiding man.

Originally published in Atlanta Journal Constitution.

 

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