Cnn host and Time magazine contributing editor-at-large Fareed Zakaria was suspended by his employers yesterday after he acknowledged lifting material for a recent column he wrote about gun control.
Time said it was suspending Zakaria for one month, “pending further review,” and CNN said it had also suspended him for his journalistic misstep.
CNN put no time limit on its suspension.
The sanctions came after Zakaria issued a public apology for borrowing from a recent New Yorker essay about gun control for a column he wrote for Time this week.
“Media reporters have pointed out that paragraphs in my Time column this week bear close similarities to paragraphs in Jill Lepore’s essay in the April 23rd issue of the New Yorker. They are right. I made a terrible mistake,” he wrote in his apology.
“It is a serious lapse and one that is entirely my fault.”
Ali Zelenko, a spokesman for Time, said it accepted Zakaria’s apology but felt compelled to act against him because he had violated its standards for all columnists.
“Their work must not only be factual but original; their view must not only be their own but their words as well,” Zelenko said.