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Newsweek adds plagiarism warning to Fareed Zakaria articles

Newsweek has added a plagiarism warning to all of its columns by Fareed Zakaria in the wake of new plagiarism accusations.

"Fareed Zakaria worked for Newsweek when it was under previous ownership. Readers are advised that some of his articles have been the subject of complaints claiming that they contain material that should have been attributed to others," the note reads. "In addition, readers with information about articles by Mr. Zakaria that may purportedly lack proper attribution are asked to e-mail Newsweek at [email protected]"

Zakaria, now a CNN host and columnist for The Washington Post, wrote for Newsweek from 1996 to 2010 and also served as editor of Newsweek International from 2000 to 2010. A handful of the articles he wrote for Newsweek have been included in the ongoing plagiarism accusations by Our Bad Media, a site run by two anonymous Twitter users that has dedicated nearly two months to Zakaria's work.

The note from Newsweek goes far beyond what any of Zakaria's current employers have done in response to the reports. CNN President Jeff Zucker recently said that he has "complete confidence" in Zakaria, while Post editorial page editor Fred Hiatt has dismissed the plagiarism accusations altogether.

Earlier this month, I conducted a review of Our Bad Media's reports and asked two jourrnalism ethics experts — Robert Drechsel, the James E. Burgess chair and director of the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Kelly McBride, the vice president for academic programs of The Poynter Institute — to review them as well. I concluded that Zakaria plagiarized, and both Dreschel and McBride concluded the same. Over the weekend, CNN media reporter Brian Stelter instead referred to the incidents as "attribution mistakes."

Newsweek's note appears at the top of Zakaria's author page and at the bottom of his columns.