It may only be the second day of 2024, but reporter Matt Egan joined Tuesday’s CNN News Central and got in an early contender for quote of the year when he claimed that resigning Harvard President Claudine Gay has not been accused of “stealing anyone’s ideas” just “copying other people’s writings without attribution” because that, apparently, is a big difference. …

He unintentionally hilariously claimed that, “then you layer on top of these plagiarism allegations where Claudine Gay has had to issue corrections, multiple corrections. Now, we should note that Claudine Gay has not been accused of stealing anyone’s ideas in any of her writings. She’s been accused of, sort of, more like copying other people’s writings without attribution. So it’s been more sloppy attribution than stealing anyone’s ideas, but nonetheless, you put all that together and you throw on top the political pressure and also the pressure from donors.”

[Talk about distinctions without differences! “Copying other people’s writings without attribution” is the core definition of plagiarism. To suggest that this isn’t stealing is to assert that Gay could give the writings back at some point and negate the violation. That certainly is a curious position for a MEDIA COMPANY to take; I’d bet they wouldn’t be nearly as understanding if someone copied THEIR material without attribution. That would (rightly) result in a cease-and-desist letter, followed by litigation. — Ed]