The New York Daily News is standing behind Shaun King amid the criminal justice columnist’s plagiarism scandal, placing the blame on King’s editor instead.
“We have discovered today that over the course of the past few months one of our editors has made a series of egregious and inexplicable errors,” the paper’s editor-in-chief Jim Rich said in a statement released to CNN on Tuesday.
“On at least three separate occasions, the editor deleted attribution that made it appear passages from Shaun King’s columns were not properly credited. These mistakes are unacceptable and the editor in question has been fired,” the statement continues.
Over the past week, King has been accused of plagiarism on more than one occasion, as several passages from his recent columns appear to have been lifted directly from other publications, including The Daily Beast and FiveThirtyEight. King and the Daily News say that proper attribution existed in King’s drafts, but were removed by the unnamed editor.
“By in large, if you think I plagiarized a damn thing, you can kiss my ass. Feel free to quote that. Those are my words toom” King wrote via Twitter on Tuesday.
See the full statement from Rich below:
#BREAK: Statement from New York Daily News editor Jim Rich regarding @ShaunKing situation >> pic.twitter.com/4KJu7PihAN
— Dylan Byers (@DylanByers) April 19, 2016
https://twitter.com/ShaunKing/status/722522730197819392