Shaun King has been a mysterious social figure both due to accusations made by former collaborators, as well as statements and behavior he’s displayed in the past.
It’s almost become an accepted fact on the timeline that every few weeks or so, something will pop up to forcibly remove Mr. King from the paint. Well, it’s that time again.
Justin Miller, Senior Editor at The Daily Beast found, what he believed to be, evidence of plagiarism in one of Shaun King’s pieces, in which a section of two paragraphs were lifted straight from his colleague, Kate Briquelet and he sent the tweet that started the scandal.
It appears @ShaunKing plagiarized @kbriquelet‘s story. https://t.co/LEpEtl8aXG vs. https://t.co/50OJ8w4HIU pic.twitter.com/0QZtK3m1XP
— Justin Miller (@justinjm1) April 19, 2016
This obviously sent Twitter into a frenzy. The jokes, speculation, disgust, and defense of Shaun King rushed the app like a tidal wave, and his name was the number 1 trending topic for considerable amount of time.
Also, per usual, Shaun King was not going to take this lying down. Amidst all of the confusion, he returned fire with one of his infamous numbered rants.
1. No. I did not plagiarize @TheDailyBeast or @FiveThirtyEight or anyone else. Where I attributed & linked to both pic.twitter.com/PDfapqWucx
— Shaun King (@ShaunKing) April 19, 2016
2. Here is what I submitted to my editors THIS MORNING where I properly attributed to Kate of @TheDailyBeast pic.twitter.com/sVzblHzNqu
— Shaun King (@ShaunKing) April 19, 2016
After providing these receipts, and a few more tweets in his defense, Shaun King takes it up a notch and goes live on Facebook to address those that want to hear from him in more detail, directly.
About to go live @ https://t.co/nxL8euAICJ
— Shaun King (@ShaunKing) April 19, 2016
During the live video, Shaun King expressed his disappointment with the editors at The Daily Beast, and chastised them for the way they chose to make their accusations in the public forum. He also gave viewers a look at the post dated emails containing the work in question to prove that he very clearly gave credit where credit was due and did not plagiarize.
Here’s an excerpt from the Facebook video that Shaun King posted in a tweet:
Not only is it a lie that I plagiarized anything, I named the person, their publication, links, and block quotes.https://t.co/449ZsA5hUj
— Shaun King (@ShaunKing) April 20, 2016
In response to the accusations and in defense of King, the NY Daily News has fired the editor responsible for fixing and posting Shaun’s work, and this statement was made by New York Daily News editor Jim Rich.
#BREAK: Statement from New York Daily News editor Jim Rich regarding @ShaunKing situation >> pic.twitter.com/4KJu7PihAN
— Dylan Byers (@DylanByers) April 19, 2016
What do you think about the Shaun King plagiarism scandal? Let us know in the comments.
