New York Magazine is investigating writer Ross Barkan for plagiarism after he seemingly ripped off his lede paragraph in a recent hit piece against The Daily Wire.
Barkan recently joined the new liberal media trend of writing rumor-laden attacks on The Daily Wire. After his story was published, Washington Post reporter Drew Harwell took to X to complain that Barkan’s lede was almost identical to the one he had published days earlier.
After Barkan was called out, New York Magazine updated his story to credit Harwell, seemingly acknowledging that it was a direct rip-off. NPR then identified at least two other instances where Barkan ripped off entire paragraphs, this time from The Intercept and Compact Magazine.
The lede of our Shapiro story on Saturday and the lede of the @NYMag story todayhttps://t.co/P20BkpGhqWhttps://t.co/Ha03RLE3qs pic.twitter.com/64OzrvFcRS
— Drew Harwell (@drewharwell) May 14, 2026
New York Magazine spokesperson Lauren Starke told NPR that the magazine is “conducting a review of the writer’s prior work.”
Rather than deny that he is a plagiarist, Barkan argued online that it’s okay because he credited the people he was stealing from.
“I am allowed, as a columnist building on *his* reporting, to cite facts. Especially when he’s credited,” Barkan said of the Compact Magazine incident.
He further attempted to brush the issue under the rug in a statement to NPR: “I have written hundreds upon hundreds of columns, essays, and pieces of journalism in my career. I stand by my record.”
He added that this is “all quite ridiculous.”
Barkan has been a prolific writer, and liberal, in the New York scene. In addition to New York Magazine, he has also written for The New York Times, and in 2018 ran for state senate (but lost) as a Democrat.
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