New York Times Issues Editors' Note in Response to Plagiarism Charge

By: Ravi Somaiya | New York Times

In an editors’ note responding to allegations of plagiarism, The New York Times said on Wednesday that a reporter in the culture department had improperly used a section from a Wikipedia page without the correct attribution.

The reporter, Carol Vogel, was accused by the media website FishbowlNY this week of copying a paragraph for the lead of an article on the Italian renaissance painter Piero di Cosimo. Both paragraphs contained the same distinctive details — on the painter’s fear of thunderstorms, love of boiled eggs and other eccentric habits — in the same order. “Vogel’s lede is far too close to Wikipedia for unattributed comfort,” the website wrote.