Miami Scribe Resigns Amid Herald Plagiarism Flap

He chronicled the ups and downs of Miami Beach in his critically acclaimed book "Miami Babylon," but now Gerald Posner has a down of his own after he resigned yesterday from his writer's job at Daily Beast amid accusations of plagiarism.

In a blog posted yesterday on his personal page, Posner said he offered his resignation as the site's chief investigative journalist to the popular Website's managing editor and it was accepted.

Posner came under fire last week when it was revealed he'd lifted five sentences from a Miami Herald article for one of his Daily Beast articles. A Beast internal investigation revealed more instances of plagiarism this week.    

"The excellent reputation established by The Daily Beast in the last year should not be tarnished by any controversy swirling around me," Posner wrote in his blog post.

Posner said any instances of plagiarism weren't intentional, and that he often had to cut "master files" of 15,000 words down to 1,500 word articles, and the attributions got lost in the shuffle.

He also attributed the mistake in not fine tuning the articles to the "warp speed of the net."

Nevertheless, Posner owned up to the goofs.

"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.

Posner, 55, has written 11 books, including "Case Closed," about the JFK assassination, and "Why America Slept," about the 9/11 terrorist attacks. He gained recent acclaim for breaking several stories on the Tiger Woods mistress scandal.

A Miami Beach resident, Posner said he'll now focus on writing his next book.  
 
"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," Posner wrote.

Leave Comments