Gerald Posner and The Daily Beast's 'Unintentional' Plagiarism Scandal

(Feb. 9) -- In his own words, Gerald Posner's "method of compiling information that I have used successfully since 1984 on book research obviously does not work in a fail-safe manner at the warp speed of the Net."

In fact, the method of reporting used by the Daily Beast investigative writer was, according to Posner himself, plagiarism. And this week, he was suspended from Tina Brown's online magazine after failing to make some important attributions of his own.

Alan Diaz, AP

Writer Gerald Posner, here in October, admitted to plagiarizing from the Miami Herald. He said it was unintentional and that he was "horrified" at what he had done.

It was the Miami Murder Mystery that gave him away. Last week, a reader told Slate magazine's Jack Shafer that he had noticed some striking similarities between a Miami Herald article that covered the salacious South Beach tale and one of Posner's pieces about the story. Shafer, a media reporter who has nabbed many a plagiarist before, compared the two articles and found the verdict inescapable: Posner, Shafer, decided, had committed plagiarism.

Here are some of the offending phrases Shafer discovered:

This, from the Miami Herald piece:

The Novacks, who wed in 1991, had a tumultuous marriage. In 2002, Narcy Novack and two others tied Novack Jr. to a chair, threatened to kill him and removed money from his safe, according to the police report.

"If I can't have you, no one else will," she told him, according to a divorce petition he filed and later dropped.

And this, from Posner's Feb. 2 article about the murder mystery in The Daily Beast:

There is little doubt the Novacks had a volatile relationship. In 2002, 11 years into their marriage, Narcy and two others tied Ben Jr. to a chair, threatened to kill him and took money from his safe, according to the police report filed at the time.

"If I can't have you, no one else will," she told him, according to a divorce petition Ben Jr. filed and then dropped.

But few are taking much pleasure from Posner's fall. Because while he has acknowledged that he committed one of the cardinal sins of journalism, he also insists that it was a mistake.

After telling Shafer that he was "horrified" at what he had done, Posner seemed to be poring over his memory in earnest for the moment he crossed the line. "I must have had the Miami Herald there and copied," he told Shafer.

Gawker's Brian Moylan seemed a little disappointed. "Wow, everyone is handling this really professionally," he wrote Friday. "When it comes to plagiarism we wish it were a little bit dishier."

On his personal Web site Monday, Posner issued an apology and reiterated his assertion that the plagiarism was unintentional.

And his colleagues seemed to believe him. At first, Edward Felsenthal, The Daily Beast's executive editor, stood by Posner and said he would keep writing for the site. "I'm convinced this was an unintentional aberration in an extraordinary career breaking news and doing top-quality journalism with high ethical standards," he told Shafer. But then, after readers discovered another lifted phrase in the article, Posner announced that he had been "suspended" and would be taking a "temporary time out" from The Daily Beast.

At Slate, Shafer registered surprise at the scandal. "Posner is no stranger to the story he plagiarized," Shafer noted, "having covered elements of it for his 2009 book 'Miami Babylon: Crime, Wealth and Power -- A Dispatch From the Beach.'"

UPDATE: Wednesday afternoon, Gerald Posner resigned from his post at The Daily Beast after the online magazine's internal investigation found more instances of plagiarism. On his website this afternoon, Posner apologized to his readers and colleagues, and maintained that the plagiarism was unintentional. "Speed, the desire for a scoop, the natural inclination to want to break news on a developing story of national importance, made me shortcut my own rigorous standards," he wrote. "I shall not be doing journalism on the internet until I am satisfied that I can do so without violating my own standards and the basic rules of journalism."

In an email to Aol News, Daily Beast publicist Andrew Kirk confirmed the resignation. "While the review is still underway, we have found additional examples of unattributed material that violate the journalistic standards of The Daily Beast," he said. "As a result, The Daily Beast has ended its relationship with Gerald and will be correcting his articles."