The New York Daily News fired an editor for a “series of egregious and inexplicable errors” after allegations that Black Lives Matter figurehead Shaun King plagiarized two paragraphs from an article by Kate Briquelet on police brutality for The Daily Beast.
Jim Rich, editor in chief of The New York Daily News, issued a statement saying the decision to fire the responsible editor was due to “attribution that made it appear passages from Shaun King’s columns were not properly credited.”
On finding out that it had been picked up on, King said, “The tweet that said I had plagiarized the article had been out for a good 30 minutes before I saw it.”
“And so when I saw it, my blood pressure and my frustration went through the roof,” he claimed. “My first reaction was, ‘Why is this guy lying on me? There was not a word in the piece that I wrote today that was plagiarized.'”
He proceeded to write a ten point explanation on Twitter protesting his innocence, concluding with, “By in large, if you think I plagiarized a damn thing, you can kiss my ass.”
He began by providing copies of the story he sent to his editors, detailing the process in which he submits stories where he said he does not read his own work once published, before blaming The Daily Beast for “handling the situation poorly.”
King continued with a bizarre rant blaming The Daily Beast for coming after him because the outlet “rides hard for Hilary,” especially since Chelsea Clinton is a board member of the news site.
He finished off by defending his own journalistic integrity, telling people to “take that bullshit somewhere else.” He then took to Facebook to post a live video to “urgently [respond to] the new lies about me.”
The fired editor has yet to be identified.
The incident is just the latest of a series of allegations of impropriety surrounding King, including questions about what happened to funds raised for Haiti earthquake victims and that he lied about his true ethnicity.
You can follow Ben Kew on Facebook, on Twitter at @ben_kew, or email him at ben@yiannopoulos.net
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.