Late last week, the website Our Bad Media published “A Guide for Journalists: Understanding why Malcolm Gladwell Is a Plagiarist.” Included are a number of comparisons between Gladwell’s articles and articles by other writers that he most likely drew from but did not cite. Contacted by the Poynter media journalist Andrew Beaujon, New Yorker editor David Remnick responded to the blog post: “The issue is not really about Malcolm. And, to be clear, it isn’t about plagiarism. The issue is an ongoing editorial challenge known to writers and editors everywhere — to what extent should a piece of journalism, which doesn’t have the apparatus of academic footnotes, credit secondary sources? It’s an issue that can get complicated when there are many sources with overlapping information.
This weekend, music critics bemoaned the news that the website Wondering Sound, which launched in March and has already built a devoted readership, is planning to scale back while it looks for partnerships and additional funding.
Alec MacGillis, one of the many editors who left the New Republic less than two weeks ago, has been hired at Slate.
Holland Cotter pays tribute to Jane Freilicher, a painter and part of the inner circle of the New York School Poets. Her friendships with John Ashbery, Frank O’Hara, and Kenneth Koch were the springboard for an exhibition last year. Freilicher died last week, a few days before her 90th birthday.
Buzzfeed will begin producing a twice-weekly newsletter about books in 2015. The Buzzfeed team promises “great reading recommendations” and “all the Harry Potter you can handle.”
The New Yorker’s David Denby has announced that he is giving up his position as a regular film critic. He will remain at the magazine, where he plans to work on “longer pieces on movies and other things” and to “contribute to the web when I have something juicy to say.” Anthony Lane, with whom Denby usually alternates, will now be the print magazine’s sole movie critic.