A fact-checker at Harper’s caught plagiarism in a manuscript submitted by Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Chris Hedges in 2010, according to a New Republic article today. Sections of the draft were apparently lifted from then Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Matt Katz’s work the previous year.
So apparently I was plagiarized http://t.co/FY6Z63dBQL Here's my original series about Camden. Still relevant: (http://t.co/p0hlnLnHll)
— Matt Katz (@mattkatz00) June 12, 2014
The Harper’s incident was part a pattern of Hedges lifting material from other sources, Christopher Ketcham writes:
The plagiarism at Harper’s was not an isolated incident. Hedges has a history of lifting material from other writers that goes back at least to his first book, War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning, published in 2002. He has echoed language from Nation author Naomi Klein. He has lifted lines from radical social critic Neil Postman. He has even purloined lines from Ernest Hemingway.
The Harper’s fact-checker told Ketcham that Hedges was “very unhelpful from the beginning, and very aggressive.” Here’s part of what Hedges told Ketcham in response to claims of plagiarism:
“It has always been my experience working with editors over many years that we work together to fully source and vet an article,” Hedges continued. “Thus, at this stage a charge of plagiarism was at once shocking and unwarranted. … The final, published material is what counts.”
But Ketcham also outlines other published passages by Hedges that are very similar to or identical in wording to work by other writers.
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