Allyan Arshad

ENG4UE-91
Ms. Yanchus

Fareed Zakaria
In this instance of real life plagiarism, journalist Fareed Zakaria became notorious
for his accusations of serial plagiarism. Zakaria was a journalist at CNN, The Washington
Post, and was once an editor for Time Magazine. In 2014, it was discovered by two
watchdog organizations that Zakaria was utilizing work from others in his books, articles
and on his CNN show without giving credit to the original creators. Zakaria argued that
he only restated facts and statistics from others work but media critic Dylan Byers
discredited him by saying that he uses work from other sources and presents it as if it is
his own. (Byers, 2014). Byers also stated that a recent report revealed 24 instances of
plagiarism found on Zakarias CNN show (Politico, 2014).

In 2012, Zakaria was suspended from Time and CNN over a separate plagiarism
case, however the consequences for Zakaria were close to nothing as he only received
negative criticism from his target audience and is still employed by CNN and The
Washington Post. (Adamczyk, 2016). Throughout his career as a journalist, reports have
found over three dozen cases of plagiarism from Zakarias work. The consequences for
this situation are unfair because they should have been more severe given that this is
not the first time Zakaria has committed an act of plagiarism. A more effective
approach would be to permanently suspend Zakaria as journalist. I believe that his acts
of plagiarism are unredeemable because he has used others work numerous times
without giving credit where credit is due.

In my opinion, Zakarias instance of plagiarism isnt understandable because it

happened on many occasions. As stated before, watchdog organizations found over
three dozen instances in which Zakaria plagiarized passages, facts, work, style, and
language and failed to give proper credit to original authors. His actions are
unredeemable as Zakaria is one of the top journalists who regularly hosts interviews with
the worlds biggest powers; a position that should require him to use his own ideas and
to credit and cite sources when he uses them. One thing I learned about plagiarism
from this article, is that even an authors style of writing needs to be credited if used in
your work. Of course, as a journalist Zakaria must rely on information from different
sources, but presenting them as his own is where he made a big mistake.
Word count: 391
Allyan Arshad
ENG4UE-91
Ms. Yanchus

Sources
Adamczyk, A. (2016, July 20). Melania Trump, Joe Biden, Katie Couric Accused of Plagiarism | Money.
Retrieved July 10, 2017, from http://time.com/money/4413480/melania-trump-plagiarism-high-profile/

Byers, D. (2014, September 16). The wrongs of Fareed Zakaria. Retrieved July 10, 2017, from
http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2014/09/the-wrongs-of-fareed-zakaria-195579