The bloggers at Our Bad Media embarrassed CNN host Fareed Zakaria host again with some more obvious examples of Zakaria shamelessly, blatantly borrowing other people’s work – in this case on the airwaves of CNN. They brought 26 examples.
They concluded:
This latest installment shows the consistent, widespread practice of plagiarism by Fareed Zakaria extends to television. Rather than being an isolated mixup or lapse that happened a couple of years ago, Zakaria has unapologetically continued to appropriate others’ work to this day. Even putting aside the ethics of the issue, the examples above show how his practice of copying and pasting has resulted in significant factual errors on the show that would have been easily avoided had actual reporting taken place.
We can’t read Fareed Zakaria’s mind but we can reasonably draw the conclusion that ethics are secondary to his need to be perceived as a “thought leader.” We can also infer that he thinks his viewers and the reporters who cover him are idiots, lazy, or both.
When Politico's Dylan Byers concluded this was plagiarism and asked for comment, CNN responded by merely rehashing what it said in 2012, as if they found everything in the OBM indictment utterly unconvincing. Did they even read it?
"CNN has the highest confidence in the excellence and integrity of Fareed Zakaria's work," the statement reads. "In 2012, we conducted an extensive review of his original reporting for CNN, and beyond the initial incident for which he was suspended and apologized for, found nothing that violated our standards. In the years since we have found nothing that gives us cause for concern."
As the blog Inside Cable News sees it:
Bad move. CNN is desperately hoping this blows over and everyone moves off Zakaria but something is twisting in the wind this time…and it’s CNN itself.
Seven of the instances in the OBM report occurred after Zakaria had been suspended in 2012, so this isn’t a case of OBM digging up plagiarism examples from before he got suspended which would amount to little more than historical footnotes in a storyline that turned a corner after the 2012 suspension. We have examples from after the suspension…meaning it is still going on.
This is why CNN continuing to “comment” by referring back to the previous statement which references whatever due diligence was done investigating Zakaria back in 2012 is an unsustainable approach. You can’t say you investigated and cleared him after he was suspended and you’re satisfied if he’s still doing it. You end up looking brazenly foolish…like you are living in your own little reality distortion field.
