The American Dream Destroyed by 110 Words

Fareed Zakaria, a well-known name in every household in the United States and even considered as one of the hottest legends in American journalism today, is the former editor of “Foreign Affairs,” the former editor of “Newsweek” international edition, and a columnist of “Time” magazine. “CNN” even aired a special program, “Zakaria PGS,” just for him during prime time every Sunday, and Zakaria naturally took up the host position.

The legend of Zakaria is not confined to the field of press; he is also a star in the field of science of diplomacy. In the 1990s, Zakaria was considered to be “a younger version of Henry Kissinger” during his study at Harvard University. Former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice praised him for being “familiar with every corner of the world.” Former U.S. president of the Council on Foreign Relations Leslie Gilbert predicted that in 10 years, he might become U.S. national security adviser. There are others who predicted that he might become U.S. secretary of state.

However, all of this came to an abrupt halt in the past week. In Zakaria’s article in an upcoming issue of “Time” magazine, a section of the text was suspected of being plagiarized from an article written by Jill Lepore, professor of history at Harvard University, which was published in the “New Yorker” magazine in April. The two articles were carefully compared. In Zakaria’s discussion of gun control in his article, there is a whole section of text regarding the history of U.S. gun legislation that is highly similar to the article by Professor Lepore.

What is familiar to Chinese readers is that this plagiarism exposure was also first discovered by Internet users who are ardent about anti-academic-counterfeiting. Due to the involvement of an influential figure such as Zakaria, this incident rapidly spiraled out of control. Nevertheless, what is incredible to Chinese readers is that the cause of this enormous trouble for Zakaria is only 110 words, which merely reviews the history. Furthermore, these 110 words are not identical to the original; Zakaria had replaced words with their synonyms in many places. However, Zakaria has not given any good explanation or sophistry for himself. Two days after the exposure, Zakaria quickly issued an apology, clearly admitting to his act of plagiarism and claiming to have made “a terrible mistake” and being “fully responsible.”

In the United States, there are very strict standards for plagiarism and even more stringent punitive measures. Using academic dissertation as an example, there are two well-known guides for academic writing in the United States: “The Chicago Manual of Style” and “Webster American Standard Writing Manual,” which state: “Use of more than three consecutive words of another person’s exact wording must use direct quotes. Otherwise, it is considered plagiarism even with citation of sources.”* Although Zakaria’s article is just a media column and not a strict scholarly article, it must be measured against higher standards for people with highly rigorous academic training from Harvard University and relatively famous like him. Therefore, after the incident came to light, neither Zakaria nor any American stood up and defended him, to argue that it was just a short historical narrative and could not be considered plagiarism.

These 110 words not only caused Zakaria to lose his job in the media, but also shattered his possibly bright future. Zakaria was once regarded as a representative of the American Dream: an ordinary person born into an Indian middle-class family, who got a scholarship to Yale University after graduating from an Indian high school. He finished his doctorate at Harvard University, and then grew famous in the U.S. media during his career. However, plagiarism represents the loss of his integrity, which means that his prior brilliance was wiped out once and for all. No one will sympathize with a person who has lost his integrity, and what is more difficult is finding an employer who is willing to hire a reporter with a record of plagiarism.

The United States may make your dreams come true if you have talent, but the U.S. will absolutely destroy your dreams if you lose integrity.

*Editor’s note: Although this is general agreed policy, the exact quote could not be verified.