This blog makes me a plagarist

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Ari Siletz
by Ari Siletz
16-Aug-2012
 

 

 

On August 10th, Time Magazine columnist and CNN TV host Fareed Zakaria apologized for a column where he phrased a fashionable idea about gun control in a way quite like someone else's article published earlier in the New Yorker magazine. Was it really plagarism or just absent-mindedness? Pedantic hair splitters insist it was plagarism, less agenda prone observers give him the benefit of the doubt. Regardless, Time and CNN have both suspended Zakaria for plagarism.

This week, The Washington Post's Paul Farhi levelled a second charge of plagarism against Zakaria, accusing him of failure to cite the source of a quote in a book he published in 2008. After the Daily Beast pointed out that Zakaria had in fact cited his source the Washington Post retracted the accusation: “This story incorrectly states that in the initial hardcover edition of his 2008 book, The Post-American World, Fareed Zakaria failed to cite the source of a quote taken from another book. In fact, Zakaria did credit author Clyde V. Prestowitz.”

So why are big media journalists falling over themselves trying to ruin Zakaria's reputation? Perhaps out of envy. I can't read their minds. What I can say is that Fareed Zakari anchors one of the few shows that treats foreign policy seriously, that aims for an honest balance of views, and that doesn't treat its panelists as props for an egomaniacal host. He's also one of the few prominent liberals I know who's capable of treating an opposing point of view as something other than a slur on human decency.

I borrowed the main part of the last paragraph from another writer, without attribution. Can you tell which article it comes from? How long did it take you to discover my plagarism? Nevermind, the question is a rhetorical way of saying that in the internet age no writer of Zakaria's stature would be stupid enough to deliberately borrow words without attribution. Because even you and I can quickly spot it.

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Esfand Aashena

Darius jaan you are a "liberal" yourself!

by Esfand Aashena on

I don't think you're that "conservative"!  I mean do you oppose the abortion?  Are you against same-sex marriages?  Are you against teaching evolution in schools?  Are you against sex education in schools? Are you against universal healthcare?  Are you against immigration reform that allows path to citizenships for immigrants who are ordinary law-abiding people who live in shadows?  Or children of illegal immigrants who were 1 or two years old when their parents illegally immigrated?

The list goes on but I think you get the picture!  Fareed is not that "liberal".  For example, he is a staunch supporter of Israel and has often prayed facing Israel!  He is against Mullahs in Iran but is not afraid to have another view other than the prevailing views in the US.

Anyway, I find his program interesting as well and the topics and people he covers and interviews.

My third blog on i.com (Stalin, Mao And ... Ahmadinejad?) nearly 5 years ago was in reference to one of his articles in Newsweek, before he became a CNN anchor with his own show.  Stinking Ahmadinejad!

Everything is sacred


Darius Kadivar

;0)

by Darius Kadivar on

Yes I noticed the silly accusation for plagiarism against Zakaria ...

 

I don't share all his views nor his "liberal" stance but as a humble colleague I stand by him.

 

I read the passage for which he was accused of plagiarism and honestly it's disproportional to accuse him of anything even close to that. If my memory is correct He wasn't copy and pasting entire passages from some creative work like let's say novels by Voltaire or Hemingway for heavens sake ...

He was simply drawing a conclusion based on a legal assessment by merely using the exact words made by some lawyer in some book which he did not refer to. Sharing the same conclusion as the author who himself drew the same conclusion after reading a lawbook doesn't make Zakaria a copy cat.

 

This is like claiming that putting on paper Albert Eistein's mathematical formula E=Mc2 when describing the secrets of the Universe without mentioning Eistein would be plagiarim ...

 

Then might as well accuse him of censorship Had he not shared that assessment ...

 

Ta Gabre, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah ...