Zakaria’s Plagiarism “Worse Than It Looks”
Posted on August 13th, 2012 in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »
Writing on HuffPo, Jim Sleeper gives notice that he really, really doesn’t think much of Fareed Zakaria.
Also: that given Yale’s tough stance on plagiarism, and that the person Zakaria plagiarized from has a Ph.D. from Yale, Zakaria should resign or be suspended from the Yale Corporation.
And he reports one tidbit that I didn’t know but am astounded by: Zakaria charges $75, 000 for a speaking appearance—and he gets it.
So I repeat the point: There is a certain kind of journalist who writes primarily in order to be hired for more lucrative gigs—Gladwell, Lehrer, Zakaria. (In fairness, Gladwell’s written work is pretty lucrative in its own right, the other two’s somewhat less so.)
And at $75, 000 for an hour or so’s work, speechifying is attractive—I could make my annual salary in a morning. That’d be nice. There’s your kid’s private school tuition paid for at breakfast. Who would say no to that? Not me. (No one’s ever offered.)
But for $75, 000…you really ought to write your own stuff. That some people stop doing so shows how corrupting the speechifying et al can be.
I do wonder what Yale will do about Zakaria’s trusteeship. As Sleeper points out, Zakaria came to Yale’s aid on the debate over the Singapore campus, writing a vociferous (particularly by his standards) Yale Daily News article defending the wisdom of opening a campus in a country that doesn’t have freedom of speech.
Yale owes him one. Will this be payback time? And if so, will that be another compromising effect of the Singapore campus?
3 Responses
8/13/2012 12:30 pm
Harvard Magazine has Zakaria “above the fold” as straight news on its web site. You can find a light-hearted take on the story on the Yale Magazine site, if you click on the “Yalie of the week” link to get past the lede, which is about an Olympic athlete.
Many eyes rolled at Harvard when Zakaria was announced as honorand and Commencement speaker. It really seems that the selection process has been over by administrative cowardice, with public celebrity and general inoffensiveness preferred to actual courage and depth. My goodness, they could just have given the microphone to John Lewis, who was up on the stage at the same time, or to Margie Marshall, who escorted him. (To be fair, I had no such complaints when they picked David Souter last year.)
8/13/2012 4:56 pm
As Harry notes, many of us thought the choice of Zakaria was odd and that he did not measure up to the stature of recent Commencement speakers - Justice David Souter, J. K. Rowling, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Energy Secretary Steven Chu, and Bill Gates.
My understanding is that the Commencement speaker is chosen by the President of the Harvard Alumni Association and the President of the University. Does anyone have additional information about the process?
8/14/2012 10:30 am
Now the WashPo:
WashPo is suspending him too, and he is defending his practice of stealing quotes. See also this analysis. I agree that stealing quotes is not plagiarism; it’s just sleazy, dishonorable, and unfair to the journalists who have to work hard to get those quotes.