A high-profile interviewer and columnist was at the centre of a plagiarism row and a Twitter storm on Tuesday after he said he had added quotes into interviews he had conducted that were taken from the subject's writings and not from the interview itself.
Johann Hari, who has written for the Independent over the past decade, said in a blogpost entitled "Interview etiquette", written late on Monday, that when "I've interviewed a writer" he had "occasionally" chosen to quote "the idea as they expressed it in writing, rather than how they expressed it in speech" to make their thoughts clearer.
The Orwell prize-winning writer was responding to a number of bloggers who had accused him of plagiarism in the past few days, starting with the so-called Deterritorial Support Grouppppp (DSG), who compared almost identical quotes in a 2004 interview conducted by Hari with the Italian Marxist Antonio Negri with a 2003 book, Negri on Negri, by Anne Dufourmantelle. Other bloggers found similar examples from as recently as last year.
Hari wrote that he was "a bit bemused to find one blogger considers this 'plagiarism'" and described most of his interviews as "intellectual portraits".
He said that "after doing what must be over 50 interviews, none of my interviewees have ever said they had been misquoted" and added that he had called around other unnamed newspaper interviewers "and they said what I did was normal practice".
His remarks, though, prompted a flurry of mainly hostile tweets, and the hashtag #interviewsbyhari ranked third in the trending categories on Twitter worldwide by Tuesday lunchtime. However, as the row developed, several high-profile journalists came to his support, including Guardian columnist George Monbiot and Caitlin Moran from the Times, who tweeted: "Johann Hari generally writes good, thoughtful, brave journalism, and makes Fleet Street a better place."
As the row developed, Hari remained silent, saving his reaction for a comment piece published in Wednesday's Independent and the i.
Hari used the article to concede that, on reflection, the approach he had sometimes taken was wrong, but denied accusations of plagiarism and churnalism. "Every word I have quoted has been said by my interviewee, and accurately represents their view.
"It's clearly not plagiarism or churnalism – but was it an error in another way? Yes. I now see it was wrong, and I wouldn't do it again. I'm grateful to the people who pointed out this error of judgment."
However, the allegations earlier prompted the organisers of the Orwell prize, which bills itself as "Britain's most prestigious prize for political writing" and was won by Hari in 2008, to consult the committee that made the award to see if it should take further action.
Entitled Hari Kari/Hackery, the original DSG posting, written on 17 June, cited a quote Negri gave Hari on the subject of memory in the 2004 interview. "Who controls memory? Faced with the weight of memory, one must be unreasonable! Reason amounts to eternal Cartesianism. The most beautiful thing is to think 'against', to think 'new'. Memory prevents revolt, rejection, invention, revolution."
The DSG blog (the writer has not chosen to reveal his or her identity) goes on to cite a passage from pages 100 and 101 of the Dufourmantelle book written a year earlier. That passage uses almost identical language to the interview quotes, beginning: "Who controls memory? Faced with the weight of memory, one must be unreasonable! Reason amounts to eternal Cartesianism."
The book then has half an extra sentence – "As against Descartes, one ought to choose Galileo instead" – before continuing with language almost identical to that which appeared in the 2004 interview by Hari. "The most beautiful thing is to think 'against', to think 'new'. Often, memory prevents revolt, rejection, invention, revolution."
The blog goes on to cite several other examples of similar language in the book and interview.
That was followed by Brian Whelan, editor of Yahoo! Ireland and blogger, who examined other Hari interviews, doing what he called "a basic check for plagiarism". He compared a September 2010 interview with controversial Israeli journalist Gideon Levy with writings by Levy in Haaretz, the newspaper for which he works.
Whelan found several passages in the interview that appeared to be composed of sentences that had appeared in columns previously written by Levy – and by other journalists describing him.
Hari's interview read: "With a shake of the head, he says: 'We had now two wars, the flotilla – it doesn't seem that Israel has learned any lesson, and it doesn't seem that Israel is paying any price. The Israelis don't pay any price for the injustice of the occupation, so the occupation will never end. It will not end a moment before Israelis understand the connection between the occupation and the price they will be forced to pay. They will never shake it off on their own initiative.'"
In July 2007, Levy wrote something very similar in a column for Haaretz: "The Israelis don't pay any price for the injustice of the occupation, so the occupation will never end. It will not end a moment before the Israelis understand the connection between the occupation and the price they will be forced to pay. They will never shake it off on their own initiative, and why should they?"
However, when contacted by the Guardian, Levy said he was not unhappy: "I stand behind everything that was published in the interview, which was an accurate representation of my thoughts and words."
As the online row began to subside, Simon Kelner, the Independent's editor in chief, issued a moderately supportive statement, but did not say whether any of Hari's interviews with the inserted quotes would be reviewed or whether the journalist would be disciplined. Kelner said: "Johann Hari has worked for the Independent for more than 10 years, winning a number of international journalism awards. He explained his position in a personal blog, which he threw open to debate. He has listened and reflected on the range of views expressed and will be writing about it in the Independent and i."
Hari's comment piece is to be published in the Independent – and will be available online – on Wednesday.
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Comments in chronological order (Total 255 comments)
28 June 2011 1:49PM
http://johannhari.com//2011/06/27/interview-etiquette
Simple.. cite the source?
28 June 2011 1:52PM
Does it really misspell both names?
Have to say, at first sight, this whole thing looks like a fairly standard attempt to smear a writer known for his often fierce left-wing stance.
28 June 2011 1:52PM
Doughnut Lardi is guilty of journalistic gluttony! Proof, if ever we needed it, that the man hasn't had an original thought in his life. Let's not forget this is the same man who supported the disgraceful Iraq War just as fervently as all the paid-up corporate media.
28 June 2011 1:54PM
The issue with what Hari has done isn't using old quotes, I don't believe, but that he a) didn't cite them properly and b) invented scenarios to make it look like the quotes had been said to him. He's misled the reader and that's very bad journalism.
It seems very pointless to go to the trouble to interview someone and then not use the quotes you got. Why bother interviewing them in the first place?
Also curious about Hari's assertion that this is common practice among interviewers. I've never heard of anyone doing this.
28 June 2011 1:56PM
@digit
It doesn't matter which wing Hari sat on, what he's done/doing isn't right. He is right to be called out on this.
This is as damaging to journalism as pretending the Daily Express is the world's greatest newspaper.
28 June 2011 1:56PM
By the way, surely that's a complete sentence, not a half sentence.
28 June 2011 1:56PM
I'm glad that Hari's been found out. He's always struck me as a smug, silly little schoolboy whose columns are like a sixth former's essay that has cobbled together from a variety of Google sources.
28 June 2011 1:57PM
arguably it's not great - people change their attitudes from one second to the next. You can't pretend a quote from yesterday is the same as a quote from today. If you are giving the impression that they said this at a certain point in time but they didn't, it's misleading.
However, does this warrant a tirade of this size on a competitor's website?
28 June 2011 1:58PM
fishyphil, damaging to journalism? Why? It really doesn't look that bad to me. He didn't misrepresent the interviewee and, from what I can gather, he didn't plagiarise them either since the quotes are still attributed to them, not himself.
28 June 2011 1:59PM
Baffled by all the Johann Hari bollocks on Twitter, I went off to find out what he's supposed to have done and, having read at length, I have a question - WTF?
On a scale of 1-10 of things we should be worrying about right now, this affair doesn't even make it onto the bottom end of the scale. Get a fucking life people!
28 June 2011 2:00PM
For Hari to say that he is "bemused" that he's been caught cheating is amazing. Perhaps he thought no-one read his twaddle and would never catch on to his Plagiarism. Now that I could believe!
28 June 2011 2:00PM
And... they're off the blocks.... #InterviewsByHari steams ahead, thousands wade in
Social media takes us, collectively, to a whole new level of pointing and laughing...
28 June 2011 2:01PM
Johann O'Hariha-harihan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Bq_dkPkQUU
28 June 2011 2:01PM
I'm sure Orwell would have backed the Iraq War so fervently too.
28 June 2011 2:02PM
I quite agree. Journalists shouldn't be accountable at all. There's nothing more fun than misquoting people in order to make it look like they said something they didn't, I'm taking lessons from a nice Mr. Breitbart.
28 June 2011 2:04PM
yes, seems to me this is more about people who don't like Johann Hari's opinions doing whatever they can to have a go at him... (or is it the Guardian sniping at the Independent?) Hardly anything I'm going to wast any more time worrying about.. pathetic fuss about nothing.
28 June 2011 2:05PM
There's no doubt that one of Hari's "intellectual portraits" is more interesting, and more enlightening, than the majority of interviews.
But I know I should prefer mundane truth to beautiful fabrications.
28 June 2011 2:07PM
longgondedaddy,
the clue will come when the debate moves away from Hari's journalistic practices to his politics in general....
oh. Rephrase. The clue *came* when the debate *moved* away...
28 June 2011 2:07PM
Just a cheat then ?
28 June 2011 2:08PM
RT @wallaceme "Stop!" he cried, pointing to the brass-framed clock above his desk, "Hammertime." #interviewsbyhari
RT @robertrea I gazed regretfully at her. She shrugged. "If you liked it, Johann," she pouted, "then you should've put a ring on it #interviewsbyhari
RT @MrSamWilson I walked into the room and there he was. Lionel. "Hello," he said, shaking my hand "Is it me you're looking for?" #interviewsbyhari
RT @SIRJoshuaToThee Moses slyly showed me the third, smaller stone. "Shall I include this, or are 10 commandments enough, Hari?" I just smiled #InterviewsByHari
Seriously this hashtag is GOLD. Haven't stopped crying with laughter since noon. What Twitter was made for!
28 June 2011 2:09PM
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28 June 2011 2:09PM
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28 June 2011 2:09PM
laurak88 - if that doesn't put a lid on the guy's career, there is no future for satire.
28 June 2011 2:10PM
It's not about the interview as such, it's about the article as a whole....and Hari is an amazing journalist.
Don't understand the fuss.
28 June 2011 2:11PM
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28 June 2011 2:11PM
well, I don't share that opinion anyway, but even if it were true before, it isn't now.
28 June 2011 2:12PM
Inventing quotes, hacking phones, leaving out important information, misquoting individuals, indulging in hate-crime.
These journalists MUST be public-sector workers and they should be privatised immediately, with their pensions cut and hours extended.
...oh wait a minute...
28 June 2011 2:12PM
I don't really see what the problem is here. He says he substitutes clear sentences written by the person he's interviewing for the same ideas said less clearly during the interview. He's not profiting off the work of the subjects or their interviewers (after all he only substitutes the subjects' own words), he's not misrepresenting them as far as I can tell, not that there is really any attempt to analyse that in this article. What is he supposed to have done wrong, and what would the point be of citing his sources? Who would it help and what would it acheive (other than to make the article confusing).
Incidentally, in his justificatory post on the subject he mentions that Gideon Levy specifically praised his "plagiarised" interview with him. Why no mention of that in the article?
But hey, there have been a "flurry of hostile comic tweets" about it so I guess he must be guilty of... something or other.
28 June 2011 2:14PM
Natacha - I see that shoehorn is still in fine working order.
28 June 2011 2:16PM
to call quoting someone in their own words "plagiarism" is bizarre. Do interviewers own the rights to the words interviewees said to them?
What Hari has done is, I think, bad practice, and I doubt that, despite what he says, many other interviewers do this, but it is equally bad practice to make spurious accusations of plagiarism against a writer, knowing that this is the most heinous crime that writers can be accused of, and that mud sticks.
But then, unfortunately, this is the age we live in where self-appointed culture police use the anonymity and wide reach of social networking tools to intimidate anyone who doesn't conform to their view of doing things, usually in the name of "free speech" and "tolerance"!
28 June 2011 2:16PM
The only real objection I have is with the addition of 'dramatic context'. At best it is artistic licence, but a less soft and fluffy view would be that it misleads the reader, which is never a good idea. A columnist can get away with this, of course, though I don't think it has done much for his reputation. Orwell may be spinning.
Reusing quotes, if properly attributed, isn't a crime and can add real - rather than made up - context to an article. But then again, taking parts of a quote (or a sentence from a book, or whatever) can be a dangerous game.
28 June 2011 2:16PM
Came looking to see what all the fuss was about. Apparently not a lot. Let's be honest, the bar on journalism these days is set pretty low... at least he didn't make the stories up, which seems to be more of an issue if you ask me. I guess he should have explicitly quoted his sources, but I can't imagine he will be losing sleep over this. The mere fact that the people shouting the loudest are the same ones who describe his work as 'twaddle' etc etc is telling. How many people that he has interviewed have lodged formal complaints in the past for him misrepresenting them?
28 June 2011 2:16PM
I think the Grauniad needs an English lesson. "Descrates" & "Gaileo" indeed.
And what has Hari done? Taken interviewee's statements from elsewhere and... attributed them to the interviewee. I don't think that quite comes off as "representing them as one's own work" unless you sit in a dark room and squint very hard for a long time at it.
It does look like a rather pathetic smear of a left-wing commentator though.
It just goes to show the Grauniad is perhaps not as principled left-wing as they might like you to think they are.
28 June 2011 2:17PM
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28 June 2011 2:19PM
But if it's not what the subject said at the time, it's not what the subject said - it's what Hari thinks the subject meant to say. Of course, an interview isn't a literal transcription of a conversation, but from what I've read of the Whelan and DSG postings, it's clear that Hari goes to the cuttings library rather more often and without clear attribution than he ought.
28 June 2011 2:19PM
Oh, well that's okay then. Shall we set it a little lower?
He did make his stories up, in the sense of those stories being "I interviewed someone, asked them some questions, and this is what they told me".
What sources? He has said he interpolated quotes from authors' written work. The point is that there were no sources.
Here, I'm inclined to agree with you.
28 June 2011 2:20PM
fishyphil, I have to admit, I'm coming 'round to your point of view, having looked at Whelan's blog, which looks pretty damning. Also, contra my admittedly kneejerk assumption that it was all about Hari's left position, the source of the story appears itself to be left-wing, only more so than Hari.
28 June 2011 2:20PM
While we're about it, can we have an end to those post-interview filmed 'nodding' inserts beloved of tv news reporters? Failing that, some alternative facial expressions would be welcome; outraged disgust, stoned incomprehension, simulated orgasm etc, just to make things more interesting for viewers at home.
28 June 2011 2:22PM
Brian Whelan is the Editor of Yahoo Ireland & writes in a few papers too. Pretty easy to find those details, instead of assuming blogger.
28 June 2011 2:22PM
Plagiarism is not the issue. Falsely attributing interview quotes is the issue. The fact that these quotes can be found in the authors' written work is immaterial - readers of Hari's interviews were led to believe that these answers were produced by - among other things - the quality of Hari's interviewing.
28 June 2011 2:22PM
@Natacha
Incomprehensible. Try harder.
28 June 2011 2:23PM
@TomGreenan
That's what he's said. Evidence would suggest that's not what he's done. Hari's "explanation" and lack of contrition has been as problematic as the original offence.
Because it's irrelevant. The purpose of an interview is not the pleasing of its subject.
28 June 2011 2:25PM
The question is whether if Hari had discovered Boris Johnson doing the same thing in one of his newspaper columns he wouldn't even have mentioned it because he thought it was just fine. I guess in fact he would have made a great song and dance over it. Still, he writes some amusing stuff, like how it's the state's responsibility to look after his grandmother rather than his own.
28 June 2011 2:26PM
At worst, he's helping to make his subjects seem more coherent, fluent and better prepared for the interview than they actually were.
So if they're "intellectual portraits', then he's airbrushing.
But plagiarism? Severe vocabulary fail, Twitterists.
28 June 2011 2:27PM
He's a good writer, yes, but it seems very bad practice (perhaps not plagiarism, just bad practice) to make it look as though written words were said to him on the day.
People express things very differently in writing, and even if Hari thinks they expressed themself better on a previous occasion, their "less good" choice of words may be deliberate. Maybe they don't want their language to sound so elaborate, or maybe they changed their mind? It removes the agency from the interviewee and places the journalist in a position of "knowing best" what someone else wants to say - which is worrying. Is it really so hard to make it clear where things came from?
As we settle down for a coffee, he shoos the cafe's cat out of the way, and mutters to me "I hate cats". Indeed, as he wrote last year, he believes cats to be "malevolent, otherworldly life-forms, who would back an SUV over your foot if they were given half a chance".
vs
As we settle down for a coffee, he shoos the cafe's cat out of the way, and mutters to me "cats are malevolent, otherworldly life-forms, who would back an SUV over your foot if they were given half a chance".
28 June 2011 2:27PM
The point here is that he didn't simply use their written text to "tidy up" quotes with generally the same meaning, though. In the piece on the Italian communist, it's pretty obvious looking at the original text that he's taking answers to different questions, and using them to discredit that persons political position. Whether you agree with that position or not (I certainly don't) that's not journalism. It's not even plagiarism, it's malicious misquoting, it's propaganda. For someone to win the Orwell Award on the back of this practice (which, I can promise you, isn't normal journalistic practice amongst a good deal of honest journos) is a terrible thing and should be flagged up.
28 June 2011 2:28PM
I used to rate Hari, he's written a wealth of decent columns and I particularly enjoyed the way he served the grotesque Richard Littlejohn on Sky (Google it).
But ultmately he is guilty of plagiarism and somewhat bizarre embellishment if he took quotes from a written source and claimed they were actual interview answers.
I have never heard of any serious fellow journalists doing this, nor have I done this myself, but I have seen newspapers (mainly, but not always, tabloid) lift stories and sometimes direct quotes from each other and more minor news organisations, including places I've worked.
This is also plagiarism and unacceptable. Journalism's a dirty game, just like the music industry, politics, football and most fun things in life... shit, I bet even nurses are guilty of hypocrisy and wrongdoing sometimes.
28 June 2011 2:28PM
I don't understand why he'd choose to do this - it's an interview, not a school essay.
Where did he pick this up from to even think it's common practice?
28 June 2011 2:28PM
If I were an interviewee I would be put out if I recognised that the interveiwer had extracted "quotes" from soimething I'd written or had told a different interviewer. It would smack to me of a lack of professionalism, and as a slight on my "performance" during the interview. I would think I must have failed in some way, not "given good interview" for the interviewer to have to resort to taking quotes from elsewhere. It would suggest I had wasted my time in sitting through the interview, and that the interviewer had come along to the interview with a fixed idea of what I was required to say. And as for the little bits of local colour, about how someone looked at the interviewer when uttering these made up quotes - well really...
By the way, how would the Guardian react were one of its writers to try to justify such behaviour as Hari has done? A few sessions with the Reader's Editor in order?
28 June 2011 2:29PM
As Jeffrey Archer once said to me, "Winning the Nobel Prize for Literature was nice, but having a son like Johann Hari is the crowning achievement of my life in fiction." I didn't catch the rest of his explanation, as I was called away by Steve Hawking, the Grand Mufti of Damascus and Nelson Mandela to adjudicate on a point of post-postmodern semiology, but I think we can trust Lord Archer on this one.