The financial journalist accused of plagiarizing material from The Wall Street Journal has resigned from his post at the New York Times. Zachery Kouwe was suspended yesterday by editors, and disciplinary action was being considered, but shortly afterward he announced he would leave the paper on his own, according to the Times. Kouwe’s actions were outed by Journal editor Robert Thomson, who sent a scathing letter to his rival editors at the Times, including six examples of seemingly lifted text. “The extensive use of such similar phrases, without attribution, is extraordinary,” Thomson wrote. “This is not a case of a columnist with apparently perfect recall or cryptomnesia, but one of fundamental journalistic integrity.” The Times quickly published an Editor’s Note acknowledging the whole situation, but even with Kouwe’s resignation, this smear — and the Journal’s role in it — has got to really sting for the Times’ top brass.
Times Business Reporter Accused of Plagiarism Is Said to Resign [NYT]
Earlier: Journal’s Thomson to Times’ Keller: ‘A Case of … Fundamental Journalistic Integrity’
