BuzzFeed News Fires Senior Reporter for Plagiarism

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BuzzFeed News has fired a senior reporter it says plagiarized or misattributed information in at least 11 of his articles, an individual with knowledge of the matter confirmed to TheWrap.

The reporter, Ryan Broderick, was the author of 11 articles linked in a Friday evening note to readers from BuzzFeed News’ editor in chief, Mark Schoofs, who said the articles in question contained information and phrases that were not properly attributed to their original sources. (Schoofs’ note did not explicitly name Broderick or address whether he had been fired.)

“It is BuzzFeed News’ policy that nothing may be copied, pasted, and passed off as one’s own work, and that all quotes should be attributed. We regret that in these instances those standards were not met,” Schoofs wrote. “We are continuing to look into the matter and will maintain this list with any other relevant articles that we find.”

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The articles, which include pieces about Bill Gates, WeChat and TikTok, have since been updated to “more clearly attribute phrases and sentence construction to material previously published by other news organizations,” Schoofs said. The pieces also contain editor’s notes that indicate the original publications that were not properly credited in the piece.

Broderick did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A BuzzFeed News spokesperson declined to comment.