Was an Accusation of Plagiarism Really a Political Attack?
There aren’t too many
worse things you can suggest about an author than that his or her work
is plagiarized. It’s the book-world equivalent of spreading the word
that a financial adviser has cooked the books or that the parish priest
has designs on the altar boys. By its nature, even the suggestion is
tarnishing.
So, after The Times recently published an article that
included a plagiarism claim against Rick Perlstein, the author of a new
political biography, “The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the
Rise of Reagan,” I fielded a number of outraged complaints.
Those who wrote
objected, in part, to the article’s second paragraph which described the
reaction to the book: “It has drawn strong reviews from prominent book
critics, and sharp criticism from some scholars and commentators who
accuse Mr. Perlstein of sloppy scholarship, improper attribution and
plagiarism.”
The article went on to
describe “the most serious accusations” as coming from Craig Shirley,
the author of “Reagan’s Revolution,” published in 2004. The article made
reference to accusations of “19 instances of duplicated language.” And
later to charges from Mr. Shirley of “50 instances where his work was
used without credit.” It then provided Mr. Perlstein’s and his
publisher’s denials of plagiarism and their defense of his scholarship.
They “noted that Mr. Perlstein cited Mr. Shirley’s book 125 times” on
the website where he posted his endnotes, citations and links. The
article also prominently mentioned the praise for the Perlstein book so
far. (One such positive review,
written by the former Times columnist Frank Rich who writes for New
York magazine, was on the cover of The Times’s Book Review earlier this
month.)
The author and New Yorker writer Jeffrey Toobin pointed out in an email that “an accusation of plagiarism is an extremely serious matter. Such accusations can ruin careers. The accusation here does not even rise to the level of flimsy.” Noting that “Perlstein is a left-leaning historian” and that “Shirley is a right-leaning writer and consultant,” Mr. Toobin called the claim “a political attack on Perlstein dressed up as a journalistic ethics controversy.” He wrote: “As Shirley himself acknowledges, Perlstein paraphrased Shirley’s words and then cited his work. That is not plagiarism; that is responsible behavior by Perlstein. Perlstein did what historians are supposed to do.”
The author and New Yorker writer Jeffrey Toobin pointed out in an email that “an accusation of plagiarism is an extremely serious matter. Such accusations can ruin careers. The accusation here does not even rise to the level of flimsy.” Noting that “Perlstein is a left-leaning historian” and that “Shirley is a right-leaning writer and consultant,” Mr. Toobin called the claim “a political attack on Perlstein dressed up as a journalistic ethics controversy.” He wrote: “As Shirley himself acknowledges, Perlstein paraphrased Shirley’s words and then cited his work. That is not plagiarism; that is responsible behavior by Perlstein. Perlstein did what historians are supposed to do.”
Felix Salmon, the
media writer and editor, described the matter as “an entirely fake
‘controversy,’ ginned up wholly by wing nuts who think that Reagan is
God and that any left-wing criticism of him, no matter how scholarly and
intelligent, is tantamount to blasphemy.”
“The article clearly
damages Perlstein,” Mr. Salmon wrote to me. “The New York Times is
basically a co-conspirator here, in a concerted Swift-boating of Rick
Perlstein. For shame.”
Mr. Perlstein has also written to me, largely to send me links to other articles that have been written about the matter.
One,
by a linguist at the University of Pennsylvania, Mark Liberman,
concludes that Mr. Perlstein used a practice he finds generally
acceptable: “patch writing” — that is, using “idea-combinations and
associated word choices,” preferably with specific attribution but
sometimes without. He calls this “within the normal boundaries of
research methods for narrative histories, as indicated by the fact that
Shirley did quite similar things with his own sources.”
I spoke on Monday to
the media editor, Peter Lattman, and to the deputy media editor, Bill
Brink, who was the chief editor on the article, after showing them some
of the complaints. I also corresponded with Alexandra Alter, who wrote
the article.
Mr. Brink told me that
The Times took these issues seriously before publication, discussing
whether writing about the accusations was fair. The editors said that
they believed The Times had acted responsibly and that the article was
newsworthy.
“We wrote about it
because it was out there and thought we could take it head-on in the
story. We did that in the most responsible way possible, and put it in
context,” Mr. Brink said. He said that Ms. Alter had reviewed some of
the passages in question and “did a cursory look” at others. (Ms. Alter
told me she reviewed the 19 passages originally in question.) It may,
in retrospect, have been going too far, Mr. Brink said, to make
reference to “50 instances” without independently reviewing them.
Mr. Brink also said that a number of elements combined to make the piece valid — the criticism,
for example, about a paucity of primary sources in the book and the
discussion about placing source citation not in the book itself but on
Mr. Perlstein’s website. The article described “the growing practice of
shifting endnotes out of print books and onto the web.” These factors,
combined with the polarized reaction to the book and the plagiarism
claim, added up to something newsworthy, the editors and Ms. Alter told
me.
Ms. Alter also said
that she and her editors had reviewed correspondence between Mr.
Shirley’s lawyer and the lawyer for Simon & Schuster, the publisher,
which included the 19 corresponding passages. “The language struck us
as quite similar. Mr. Perlstein and I spoke about some of the specific
passages, and he said that he regretted the proximity to Craig Shirley’s
phrasing in one instance, but pointed out that he had paraphrased the
passages and cited them in his online notes, which is standard practice
for historians. I also interviewed another Reagan scholar, Steven
Hayward, who said he found the similarities in the descriptive language
of the disputed passages to be too close for comfort, though we didn’t
end up using a comment from him in the story.”
My take: There’s a
problem here. An article about polarized reaction to a high-profile book
is, of course, fair game. But the attention given to the plagiarism
accusation is not.
Yes, the claim was
“out there” but so are smears of all kinds as well as claims that the
earth is flat and that climate change is unfounded. This one comes from
the author of a book on the same subject with an opposing political
orientation. By taking it seriously, The Times conferred a legitimacy on
the accusation it would not otherwise have had.
And while it is true
that Mr. Perlstein and his publisher were given plenty of opportunity to
respond, that doesn’t help much. It’s as if The Times is saying:
“Here’s an accusation; here’s a denial; and, heck, we don’t really know.
We’re staying out of it.” Readers frequently complain to me about this
he said, she said false equivalency — and for good reason.
So I’m with the
critics. The Times article amplified a damaging accusation of plagiarism
without establishing its validity and doing so in a way that is
transparent to the reader. The standard has to be higher.
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