NYT plagiarism consultant admits Harris scandal 'more serious' than he thought
New York Times’ plagiarism consultant Jonathan Bailey released his "full analysis" of the allegations against Vice President Kamala Harris and found them "more serious" than he initially believed.
"At the time, I was unaware of a full dossier with additional allegations, which led some to accuse the New York Times of withholding that information from me. However, the article clearly stated that it was my ‘initial reaction’ to those allegations, not a complete analysis," Bailey wrote on Plagiarism Today Wednesday. "Today, I reviewed the complete dossier prepared by Dr. Stefan Weber, whom I have covered before. I also performed a peer review of one of his papers in 2018."
"With this new information, while I believe the case is more serious than I commented to the New York Times, the overarching points remain. While there are problems with this work, the pattern points to sloppy writing habits, not a malicious intent to defraud," he added.
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"Is it problematic? Yes. But it’s also not the wholesale fraud that many have claimed it to be. It sits somewhere between what the two sides want it to be," he said.
While Bailey continued to argue the examples were more akin to sloppy work or negligence rather than malice from Harris, he conceded some, specifically two paragraphs copied directly from Wikipedia, were clear examples of plagiarism.
"To be clear, that is plagiarism. It’s compounded by the fact that Wikipedia is typically not seen as a reliable source, and, according to Weber, there was an error in the information," Bailey wrote.
He concluded, "Ultimately, I recognize that this view will make absolutely no one happy. I don’t feel that the book is a product of wholesale malicious plagiarism, nor do I think it’s free from problems. No matter your side, this will be an unsatisfactory answer."
In a New York Times article dissecting the claims, Bailey claimed the examples amounted "to an error and not an intent to defraud." He accused conservative activist Chris Rufo, who reported the story, of taking minor infractions and trying to "make a big deal of it."
However, he later revealed on X that he had only reviewed the five examples provided to him by the New York Times and had not looked at the full analysis.
"For those coming here from the NY Times Article. I want to be clear that I have NOT performed a full analysis of the book. My quotes were based on information provided to me by the reporters and spoke only about those passages," he wrote.
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Rufo first reported Monday on so-called "plagiarism hunter," Austrian professor Stefan Weber, finding 27 times that Harris and her co-author allegedly committed some form of plagiarism, writing, "24 fragments are plagiarism from other authors, [and] 3 fragments are self-plagiarism from a work written with a co-author."
"Taken in total, there is certainly a breach of standards here. Harris and her co-author duplicated long passages nearly verbatim without proper citation and without quotation marks, which is the textbook definition of plagiarism," Rufo wrote.