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17 March 2011

Washington Post reporter suspended, apologizes for plagiarizing from Arizona Republic stories

NPR / National Public Radio (USA radio network)
Thursday 17 March 2011


Pulitizer Prize-Winning Reporter Apologizes For Plagiarizing

by Mark Memmott

Sari Horwitz of The Washington Post, who shared a Pulitzer Prize in 2002 for her work on problems in the child-welfare agencies of Washington, D.C., has been suspended by the Post for three months after it was learned that she copied substantial parts of stories by the Arizona Republic when she was reporting on the aftermath of the Jan. 8 shooting rampage in Tucson.

According to the Post, Horwitz issued a statement in which she says, in part:

    "I am deeply sorry. To our readers, my friends and colleagues, my editors, and to the paper I love, I want to apologize. ... Under the pressure of tight deadlines, I did something I have never done in my entire career. I used another newspaper's work as if it were my own. It was wrong. It was inexcusable. And it is one of the cardinal sins in journalism."

The Post says that earlier this month she lifted two paragraphs from one Republic story and 10 paragraphs from another. It has posted an "editor's note" apologizing to the Republic and its readers.

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