CNN has fired news reporter and editor Marie-Louise Gumuchian after an internal investigation discovered plagiarism in “about 50 published stories.”
The news network made the announcement on Friday morning in an editor’s note on its world section.
CNN said it had removed all instances of plagiarism found in stories from Gumuchian.
“We’ve terminated Gumuchian’s employment with CNN, and have removed the instances of plagiarism found in her pieces. In some cases, we’ve chosen to delete an entire article,” CNN wrote in a post. CNN added that it had no immediate plans to discipline any of Gumuchian’s editors.
A source at CNN told Mashable that the media outlet does regular spot checks on all employees. Work by Gumuchian, who had only been at CNN for about six months, was flagged during this process. A broader investigation revealed widespread plagiarism.
CNN notified Gumuchian, who was based in London, that she would be publicly named partially because she had stories with shared bylines that would need to the addition of an editor’s note.
Gumuchian’s stories are not entirely gone from the site. Some of her stories, such as coverage of the Oscar Pistorius trial andgay marriage in Wales, are still available to read.
Gumuchian is a former Reuters reporter who spent nearly six years with the company, according to her Reuters profile. CNN has notified Reuters of the issue. Reuters did not immediately return request for comment.
Her Twitter account, which Muck Rack, a site that bridges journalists and social media, shows was active until May 6, has been shut down.
“Trust, integrity and simply giving credit where it’s due are among the tenets of journalism we hold dear, and we regret that we published material that did not reflect those essential standards,” the post continued. “We also believe in letting audiences know when we’ve remedied situations that threaten to compromise that trust.”
(via Mashable)
