By IANS,
Washington : Amid fresh allegations of plagiarism against celebrated Indian American journalist Fareed Zakaria, the Washington Post — joining Time magazine and CNN — has announced it will not run Zakaria’s column in August.
Mumbai-born Zakaria, 48, who became editor-at-large of Time in 2010 and hosted CNN’s flagship foreign affairs show GPS was suspended by the two media — both owned by Time Warner — after he admitted to plagiarisng sections of his column on gun control in the Aug 20 issue of Time.
The Post action against Zakaria came after it was reported that he “appears to have also published without attribution” a passage from a 2005 book, “Three Billion New Capitalists: The Great Shift of Power to the East,” by former Commerce Department official Clyde V. Prestowitz.
In Zakaria’s 2008 book, “The Post-American World”, former Intel Corp. chief executive Andy Grove is quoted as saying “America is in danger of following Europe down the tubes, and the worst part is that nobody knows it. They’re all in denial, patting themselves on the back as the Titanic heads straight for the iceberg full speed ahead,” Post reporter Paul Farhi wrote.
Prestowitz told the Post Grove made the comment in an interview with him that was conducted while he was researching his book and has demanded an apology.
Farhi said Zakaria has defended his book in an interview, calling the allegation “totally bogus” because the book “is not an academic work where everything has to be acknowledged and footnoted”.
He compared his technique to other popular non-fiction authors. “Please look at other books in this genre and you will notice that I’m following standard practice,” he said.
“I should not be judged by a standard that’s not applied to everyone else,” he added. “People are piling on with every grudge or vendetta. The charge is totally bogus.”