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Friday, February 8, 2019

Ex-NYT Editor Says She Will Update Book


Former New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson, who on Wednesday denied accusations that parts of her new book, "Merchants of Truth," were plagiarized, admitted Thursday that certain passages may have been "too close" to the source material, reports Fox News.

Abramson’s book, which publisher Simon and Schuster described as a "definitive report on the disruption of the news media over the last decade," was released Tuesday. On Wednesday, Michael Moynihan of Vice News claimed passages of the book were “often not true” or were “plagiarized.”

Abramson appeared on Fox News’ “The Story” Wednesday night, telling Martha MacCallum she was “100 percent” confident that her research was original and backed by “70 pages of footnotes showing where I got the information.”

But on Thursday, Abramson conceded that certain passages “should have been cited as quotations in the text,” according to a statement she gave to CNN. “I wouldn’t want even a misplaced comma so I will promptly fix these footnotes and quotations as I have corrected other material that Vice contested.”

Regardless of the admission, Abramson is standing by her work in a statement to CNN. She  conceded on Thursday that some of the passages in her new book "Merchants of Truth" too closely mirrored work that first appeared in other publications.

"The language is too close in some cases and should have been cited as quotations in the text," Abramson said in a statement provided to CNN Business.

The veteran journalist added that the language in question would be "fixed," saying that while writing her book she "tried above all to accurately and properly give attribution to the many hundreds of sources that were part of my research."

Abramson profiles four news organizations in her book, including Vice, amid a time of upheaval in journalism. Some Vice journalists have taken issue with her portrayal of their company, and Abramson has suggested their dissatisfaction has been their underlying motive for unearthing problems with the book.

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