N.Y. Times investigating plagiarism charge
The New York Times is reviewing an accusation of plagiarism against veteran reporter Carol Vogel, who was charged with lifting a paragraph from a Wikipedia article for a story about Italian Renaissance painter Piero di Cosimo.
The paragraph, discovered by FishbowlNY on Monday, appears in a July 24 article and is almost identical to a passage from the Wikipedia entry on di Cosimo, with minor word swaps and grammatical changes. Gawker's J.K. Trotter flagged the Fishbowl report on Tuesday.
“We’re aware of the situation and are looking into it," Times spokesperson Eileen Murphy said in a statement.
The charge against Vogel comes just days after BuzzFeed Editor Benny Johnson was fired for serial plagiarism. In many instances, Johnson lifted passages directly from Wikipedia. He also copied from news sites, including the Times.