Discussing charges of plagiarism against right-wing pundit Ann Coulter on the July 5 edition of MSNBC's Countdown, host Keith Olbermann asked John Barrie, the creator of the iThenticate plagiarism-probing system, whether while "[g]oing through the material" in Coulter's most recent book, Godless: The Church of Liberalism (Crown Forum, June 2006), or any of Coulter's columns, Barrie “s[aw] anything in there by her” about former New York Times reporter Jayson Blair, who resigned from the Times amid allegations that he fabricated facts and lifted others' work without attribution. Barrie recalled that he had read “a little bit about what Ann Coulter had to say about Jayson Blair and, from my understanding, she pretty much skewered Mr. Blair for what he did back at The New York Times.” Indeed, a Media Matters for America review produced examples of Coulter attacking Blair for plagiarism and repeatedly invoking the disgraced reporter to attack the Times and score conservative political points.

As the New York Post reported on July 2, Barrie “claimed he found at least three instances of what he calls 'textbook plagiarism' ” in Godless, as well as “verbatim lifts in Coulter's weekly column,” after running the text through his iThenticate system. According to the weblog TPM Muckraker, “Barrie confirmed that Universal Press Syndicate, which distributes Coulter's columns to over 100 newspapers around the country, called him twice yesterday,” and that “they want to review a copy of Barrie's 'report' before making a comment.”

A Media Matters review found several examples of Coulter blasting Blair for having engaged in plagiarism when news of Blair's misdeeds became public in May 2003:

• “The New York Times is to be commended for ferreting out Jayson Blair, the reporter recently discovered making up facts, plagiarizing other news organizations and lying about nonexistent trips and interviews. A newspaper that employs Maureen Dowd can't have had an easy time settling on Blair as the scapegoat. Blair's record of inaccuracies, lies and distortions made him a candidate for either immediate dismissal or his own regular column on the op-ed page.” [column, 5/15/03]

• “In the current Newsweek magazine, Seth Mnookin reports that Blair was forced to resign from the student newspaper at the University of Maryland, The Diamondback, for precisely the same misconduct he engaged in at the Times -- phony reporting, plagiarism, irresponsibility and fantastic lies. Once known as 'the Newspaper of Record,' the Times is now trying out the motto: 'Almost as Accurate as the Maryland Diamondback.' ” [column, 5/22/03]

• From a discussion with co-host Alan Colmes on the May 14, 2003, edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes:
  
  
  

  COLMES: It's an ugly time at the paper of record. The New York Times reporter Jayson Blair resigned earlier this month after allegations surfaced that he had plagiarized or fabricated parts of dozens of articles over several years of reporting on some of the country's most important stories.

  [...]

  COULTER: They [the Times], as I was saying, had a self-investigation. They say there was just one bad apple. And you know, it didn't work with Enron; it didn't work with Merrill Lynch; it's not going to work with The New York Times.

  COLMES: You put The New York Times in the same category as Enron?

  COULTER: It's mismanagement, yes.

  [...]

  COULTER: This sort of thing happens a lot, not a lot, but there are occasional incidents of it. What is striking here is that over and over again, when he was caught, when editors were sending a note saying, we've got to get rid of him, right now immediately, it was Howell Raines, a few others, who kept not only -- not just -- you know -- keeping him there and keeping him on a tight leash but promoting him, putting him on the front page, sending him letters of commendation.

  Now, it used to be that this was -- The New York Times was the paper of record in a genuine way, hateful and biased though it may be. One thing it had was its reputation for accuracy. It has completely abandoned that in pursuit of having, you know, one more black working at The Times.

In addition, Coulter has repeatedly invoked Blair in recent years to attack the Times. Some examples include:

• "[L]iberals claimed [former Talon News Washington bureau chief and White House correspondent Jeff] Gannon was a White House plant who received a press pass so that he could ask softball questions -- a perk reserved for New York Times reporters during the Clinton years. Their proof was that while 'real' journalists (like Jayson Blair) were being denied press passes, Gannon had one, even though he writes for a Web site that no one has ever heard of -- but still big enough to be a target of liberal hatred!" [column, 2/23/05; see Media Matters item here]

• “Within hours of the [Bush National Guard] documents being posted on CBS' Web site, moderately observant fourth-graders across America noticed that the alleged early '70s National Guard documents were the product of Microsoft Word. If that wasn't bad enough, The New York Times spent the following week hailing [former CBS News anchor Dan] Rather for his 'journalistic coup' in obtaining the documents that no other newsman had (other than Jayson Blair).” [column, 9/15/04]

• "[Times] Columnist Bob Herbert sneered of [Secretary of State Condoleezza] Rice's nomination in the New York Times: 'Competence has never been highly regarded by the fantasists of the George W. Bush administration.' For example, these are the bumbling nitwits who conquered Afghanistan, the 'graveyard of empires,' and toppled Baghdad in less time than your average Jennifer Lopez marriage lasts. (Wait, I can't remember: Was it the Bush administration that hired Jayson Blair?)" [column, 12/8/04]
• “Amid a solid stream of bad news, the New York Times reported on its own poll -- showing [Sen. John] Kerry [D-MA] 8 points behind [President] Bush -- in an article titled: 'Bush Opens Lead Despite Unease Voiced in Survey.' The Times bases its 'unease' conclusion on some secret documents recently given to them by [retired Texas Air National Guard officer] Bill Burkett. This would seem to go against the 80 percent likeability rating among Bush supporters I cited previously -- but hey, it's good to see Jayson Blair working again.” [column, 9/29/04]