New York Magazine Writer Accused of Plagiarism for the Second Time in a Week

(Photo Credit: Ross Barkan during a 12/25 appearance on The Honest Broker podcast on YouTube)

New York Magazine columnist Ross Barkan has been accused of “heavily” plagiarizing a report about President Donald Trump’s “covert” operations in Venezuela — just days after he was accused of ripping off a Washington Post report about Ben Shapiro.

Let’s review. NPR Correspondent Bobby Allyn on Friday said he ran Barkan’s work through an AI model to see if he had lifted work from other writers.

Allyn said he was inspired to investigate after Barkan’s “pilfering” of WaPo reporter Drew Harwell’s May 9th report on Shapiro; Harwell called Barkan out on X for his NY Mag story — which ran five days later — having an almost identical first two paragraphs to his story in the Post. Harwell said Barkan had “copied my lede and reporting.”

Barkan did not respond to Harwell publicly calling him out, but NY Magazine added a note to his report saying “This story has been updated to credit reporting from the Washington Post.”

Allyn on Friday said his AI review showed Barkan had stolen from other writers as well.

Allyn said Barkan had “lifted several exact phrases” from a 2025 report from The Intercept about TikTok, followed by another example with passages that were “strikingly similar” to a Compact report from last year. He showed side-by-side examples of what Compact reporter Juan David Rojas wrote in his story and what Barkan wrote in NY Mag, including the following example:

NY Magazine: The Trump administration authorized covert operations by the CIA in Venezuela, most likely ruling out continued diplomacy with President Nicolas Maduro.

Compact:  Trump administration authorized covert operations by the CIA in Venezuela after reportedly ruling out continued diplomacy with President Nicolas Maduro.

Barkan defended himself in a response to Allyn, saying “Juan is credited directly in that column, by name, and linked to. You could actually read the actual column and not rely on an AI-curated excerpt.”

Compact editor Matthew Schmitz responded to that excuse from Barkan by saying it wasn’t good enough.

“So [Ross Barkan] heavily plagiarized a [Juan David Rojas] article in Compact. He claims that this is a-ok because he linked to Juan’s article. No. That isn’t how it works,” Schmitz posted.

Barkan responded to Schmitz by saying he credited Rojas and admired his work. “Trust me, I’ve had many people link back to me and build off work I’ve done. If they cite me, they can do that,” Barkan added. 

Rojas responded by saying Barkan should have actually quoted him instead of using his quotes verbatim, and Schmitz said he had “trouble believing any editor will take the same cavalier view [Barkan] does.”

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