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topicnews · October 17, 2024

The media should not overlook Kamala Harris’ plagiarism

The media should not overlook Kamala Harris’ plagiarism

In 2009, Kamala Harris co-authored a book titled Smart on Crime: A Career Prosecutor’s Plan to Make Us Safer. The purpose was to lay out her criminal justice policies in advance of her campaign for California attorney general.

The book has attracted the attention of conservative writer and activist Christopher Rufo, who claims that Harris and co-author Joan O’C. Hamilton plagiarized several passages. Rufo’s analysis – which draws on the work of Stefan Weber, a well-known plagiarism investigator – finds that there are at least twelve sections of the book in which sentences or entire paragraphs were copied from another source without proper attribution.

“All in all, there is definitely a violation of the norms here,” writes Rufo. “Harris and her co-author reproduced long passages almost verbatim without proper citation or quotation marks, which is the textbook definition of plagiarism. Not only did they adopt material from sources without proper attribution, but in at least one case they also relied on a low-quality source, potentially undermining the accuracy of their conclusion.

Readers may disagree about the seriousness of some aspects of plagiarism: Harris borrows from her own work or does not paraphrase sufficiently. But there are even more impressive examples of entire passages being taken from other sources without citation. This is definitely a no-no and fits the standard definition of plagiarism.

Similar violations ended the career of Claudine Gay, president of Harvard University, who resigned after conservative writers, including initially Rufo The Washington Free BeaconAaron Sibarium – uncovered numerous cases of plagiarism in their academic work. One can certainly argue that Gay, a professional academic and leader of the most prestigious educational institution in the country, should be held to a higher standard than Harris. But plagiarism is often taken seriously when politicians are caught doing it. In fact, then-Sen. Joe Biden’s first attempt at running for president came to an abrupt end in 1988 when it was revealed that he had plagiarized a speech by a leader of Britain’s Labor Party.

In fact, even plagiarism involving only quasi-political figures attracts significant media attention. In 2016, Melania Trump gave a speech at the Republican National Convention that was worded in part similar to an earlier speech by Michelle Obama. The media didn’t hold back. To recap the incident: Vox reported that the plagiarism episode was “one of the RNC’s biggest stories” and that the Trump campaign’s refusal to address it had “made a bad situation worse.” Vox even wondered whether the plagiarism allegations would “damage Trump’s image with voters,” a concern that seems downright quaint.

CNN had a lot of fun with the story and published half a dozen articles and videos about it, directly comparing Melania and Michelle’s comments. The Associated Press reported that plagiarism marred Melania Trump’s moment. The Washington Post Didn’t hold back and described the Trump campaign’s defense of Melania as ridiculous. (The word “ridiculous” actually appears twice in the same headline.) The college news website In Higher Ed, an expert on plagiarism, wrote: “Yes, it was plagiarism” and the “scandal should not be trivialized.” The plagiarism accusation was covered by NPR, The New Yorker, The Guardian, the BBC, and of course, The New York Times: “How Melania’s speech went off course and caused an uproar,” one said Just Headline.

One might expect that plagiarism allegations against an actual presidential candidate—rather than his spouse—would provoke similar or even greater outrage from the media. But the Harris allegations did not generate nearly the same level of interest. In fact, their anger is directed not at Harris for plagiarizing, but at Rufo for exposing it.

The CNN report on Harris’ plagiarism allegation is headlined: “Conservative activist accuses Harris of plagiarizing passages in 2009 book he co-authored.” Note that the identity of the accuser – the plagiarism discoverer – in the case of Melania Trump was not up for debate. But here the mainstream media is forced to place Rufo, not Harris, at the center of the controversy.

Conservatives complain incessantly—and not without reason—that scandals involving Republicans, conservatives, and Trump-world figures are being reported directly, while scandals involving Democrats, liberals, and the media itself are not are, is not the case. In these latter cases, the media focuses on the motivations, intentions, and reactions of the conservatives involved in uncovering the controversy. In headlines, this is often done using the exact wording Republicans pounce on X or Republicans seize Xwhere X is what the Democrats did wrong.

This has become such a hackneyed phrase that one might have expected the mainstream media to go to greater lengths to avoid it, if only to deprive conservatives of ammunition. And yet The New York Times The essay on the Harris plagiarism allegations is headlined: “Conservative activist seizes passages from Harris book.”

The article itself minimizes the extent of Harris’ misconduct, quoting a plagiarism expert, Jonathan Bailey, who claims that Rufo “made a big deal” out of relatively minor infractions. The times however, did not share with him the full list of plagiarized passages in the book; On his website, Bailey noted this after checking all According to the allegations, the case is “more serious” than he first thought, although he maintains that Harris did not commit “wholesale fraud.”

It’s perfectly fine for journalists to report on the intentions of conservative activists who make such claims. Rufo doesn’t deny being politically motivated; On the contrary, he constantly explains his agenda and the strategy for implementing it in posts on X. But maybe The New York Times I might consider whether jumping and grabbing are the most important parts of this story.

Amber Duke returns to the program! We discuss Harris’ Fox News interview, Whoopi Goldberg’s defense of Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton’s zeal for social media censorship, whether Venezuelan gangs are taking over homes, and the media reaction to the plagiarism allegations.

I filled in for Emily Jashinsky on her show, undercurrents, and interviewed journalist Ken Klippenstein about his suspension from X and a recent encounter with the FBI. View here:

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