You're reading: New York Times denies plagiarism accusations by Russian news website Meduza

Winning a Pulitzer Prize is a dream come true for most American journalists. But for New York Times reporter Andrew Kramer, however, the joyful moment on April 10 came with accusations of plagiarism that the newspaper denies.

Meduza, the Riga-based Russian online newspaper, accused Kramer of plagiarizing parts of the article that won the prize.

The chief editor of Meduza, Ivan Kolpakov, wrote on Facebook on April 11 that Kramer, the author of “How Russia uses elite hackers for its cyber war,” had based his story on two Meduza pieces by Daniil Turovskiy without sufficiently crediting the author.

“This is a case of stealing, and of discrediting the world’s most important journalism award,” Kolpakov wrote.

Kramer told the Kyiv Post in an emailed note that he “cannot comment on this situation just now.” He noted, however, that the New York Times has put out a statement denying Meduza’s claim, and saying that the reporting and interviews were original.

“It says the newspaper stands by my story,” he said.

The accusations first emerged on Dec. 30, 2016, the day after Kramer’s story was published. Turovskiy posted a link to the New York Times story, saying sarcastically that it was his “debut” on the cover page of the newspaper.

“In reality, the newspaper’s reporter has completely retold two articles published by Meduza a month-and-a-half ago and a year-and-a-half ago,” Turovskiy wrote.

The two Meduza stories were headlined: “Overloading the system. Why did a government-owned company need a system for organizing DDoS-attacks,” published on Sept. 3, 2015, and “Russia’s armed cyber forces. How the government creates hacking armed troops,” published on Nov. 7, 2016.

In a comment to Turovskiy’s post, Kramer wrote that while working on his article the two reporters had talked.

“I explained that I intended to follow in the footsteps of your fine work, that I would credit Meduza, as I did, and thanked you for your help,” Kramer wrote on Dec. 30, 2016. “I disagree with your assessment that the article ‘in whole’ retold two Meduza articles.”

The New York Times story mentions only one of the two Meduza’s articles, referring to Turovskiy’s investigation into the Russian government’s attempts to recruit hackers, and credits Meduza for being the first to report on “the recruitment efforts” of the Russian government.

Meduza is a team of around 20 journalists, all of whom resigned from their jobs at Russian news website Lenta.ru after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ally Alexander Mamut dismissed the head of the website. Meduza describes itself as an independent website, which, according to its head Galina Timchenko, covers “a long list of forbidden topics which the Russian media do not raise due to direct and indirect censorship.”

According to Kolpakov, New York Times’s international editor Michael Slackman replied to Meduza’s allegations by saying that “the story and quotes are all the result of original reporting, completed either in person, by phone or email.”

“Nothing was simply lifted from Meduza, though I understand why you raised the concern,” he wrote to Kolpakov, adding that Turovskiy was “immensely generous in helping to steer Andrew in the right direction.”

This is not the first time that the New York Times has been accused of plagiarism. Back in 2003, journalist Jayson Blair triggered a major scandal after being accused of almost a dozen cases of plagiarism and fabrications, all of which he admitted. He lost his job as a result.

According to Kolpakov, an independent study is now being carried out to analyze Kramer’s text, and if Meduza’s suspicions are confirmed, an appeal to the organizing committee of the Pulitzer’s Prize will follow.

“Perhaps it’s just the product of our imagination – let’s wait for another view,” Kolpakov said.