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Ruth Shalit

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Ruth Shalit Barrett
Born
Ruth Shalit

1971 (age 52–53)
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S.
Alma materPrinceton University
Occupation(s)Writer, journalist
SpouseRobertson Barrett (m. 2004)
RelativesWendy Shalit
Websitewww.ruthsbarrett.com Edit this at Wikidata

Ruth Shalit Barrett[1] (/ʃəˈliːt/; born 1971[citation needed]) is an American freelance writer and journalist whose articles have appeared in The New Republic, The Wall Street Journal, ELLE, New York Magazine and The Atlantic.[2][3][4][5]

In 1994 and 1995, she was discovered to have plagiarized portions of several articles she wrote for the New Republic, and to have made several substantial errors in another.[6] In 2020, The Atlantic retracted an article she wrote (involving Connecticut parents trying to get their children into Ivy League schools through athletic spots) after it emerged that she had encouraged a source to lie to the magazine's fact-checking department.[7]

Shalit Barrett graduated from Princeton University in 1992 and made her journalistic debut with Reason that same year. Soon after, she was offered an internship at The New Republic. Shalit was considered to be an up-and-coming young journalist throughout the 1990s after she was promoted to an associate editor position at The New Republic, writing cover stories for the political weekly. She also wrote for the New York Times Magazine and had a $45,000-a-year contract to do pieces for GQ.[8][9]

She is the sister of conservative writer and author Wendy Shalit.[10] She married Henry Robertson Barrett IV in 2004,[11] becoming the stepdaughter-in-law of Edward Klein. Robertson Barrett was the Vice President of Media Strategy and Operations at Yahoo! before becoming the president of Hearst's digital division in 2016.[12]

As of 2020, Shalit lives in Westport, Connecticut, with her husband and two children.[11]

Plagiarism and inaccuracies

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New Republic

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In 1994 and 1995, Shalit was discovered to have plagiarized portions of several articles she wrote for New Republic. One story included unattributed prose by Legal Times writer Daniel Klaidman, another text by National Journal’s Paul Starobin.[13]

In the fall of 1995, Shalit wrote a 13,000-word piece about race relations at The Washington Post.[14] Shalit later admitted to "major errors" in the article, such as an assertion that a Washington, D.C., contractor who had never been indicted had served a prison sentence for corruption; misquoting a number of staffers; and numerous factual errors, such as mistakenly claiming that certain jobs at The Post were reserved for Black employees.[15]

She left the New Republic in January 1999.[16]

The Atlantic

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In 2020, The Atlantic assigned and published an article Shalit wrote as a freelancer, "The Mad, Mad World of Niche Sports Among Ivy League-Obsessed Parents". The article, published online in October 2020 and in print in November 2020, exposed efforts of affluent residents of the Gold Coast of Connecticut to use niche sports to give their already-privileged children further advantages in the competitive admissions process at elite colleges and universities. After questions were raised by The Washington Post's media critic, Erik Wemple,[17] the magazine appended several corrections to the online version, along with a lengthy editor's note. On November 1, 2020, The Atlantic published its retraction of the entire article, but uploaded a PDF of the article's print version for the sake of "the historical record".[18][19][20]

According to the editor's note, evidence had emerged after the article was published both in print and online that Barrett had not only lied to Atlantic fact-checkers and editors, but had encouraged at least one source to lie about having a son–all of which left no remedy short of a full retraction. The note also revealed that Barrett had requested her byline read "Ruth S. Barrett", but that "in the interest of transparency" Shalit was now spelled out in the byline. The Atlantic added that it had assigned Shalit this topic in the belief that the quality of her former work in reputable publications merited a second chance after her plagiarism scandals of two decades earlier, and that the editors now realized that they had been "wrong to make this assignment" that "reflects poor judgment on our part".[19]

On January 7, 2022, Shalit sued The Atlantic and Don Peck (the Atlantic's print editor at the time of the retraction) in federal court for $1 million in damages, arguing that her reputation had been "unlawfully smeared" by the retraction and accompanying editor's note.[1] The Atlantic stood by its retraction and note, and rejected her allegations, describing the lawsuit as "meritless".[18]

On September 9, 2024, Judge Loren L. AliKhan ruled on the motion to dismiss in the case of Ruth Shalit Barrett v. The Atlantic. The court dismissed Barrett's claims of breach of contract and breach of good faith, stating that she failed to demonstrate specific, non-speculative damages resulting from the alleged breaches. The judge noted that The Atlantic's confidentiality obligations were insufficient to support her claims and that her allegations of harm were too generalized, lacking evidence of tangible losses such as missed writing opportunities.[21] However, the court allowed Barrett's defamation claims to proceed. These claims assert that The Atlantic falsely portrayed her as dishonest, alleging that she misled editors and fact-checkers, fabricated details, and had previously engaged in journalistic malpractice. The court determined that there was sufficient evidence to suggest that these statements could be defamatory and could harm Barrett's reputation and career, warranting further legal examination.[22][23][24]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b "Ruth Shalit Barrett sues Atlantic for $1 million over retraction of viral article, allegations of inaccuracies" by Bryan Pietsch, The Washington Post. January 9, 2022. Accessed January 9, 2022.
  2. ^ Shalit, Ruth (August 24, 2004). "Young and Republican in Hollywood". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved January 10, 2022.
  3. ^ Levenson, Michael (November 1, 2020). "The Atlantic Retracts Ruth Shalit Barrett Article on Niche Sports". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved January 10, 2022.
  4. ^ Barrett, Ruth Shalit (March 18, 2018). "Can Leslie Jamison Top The Empathy Exams With Her Mega-Memoir of Addiction?". Vulture. Retrieved January 10, 2022.
  5. ^ Barrett, Ruth S. (May 2, 2014). "Mona Simpson Transforms Her Rich Personal Life Into Powerful Fiction". ELLE. Retrieved January 10, 2022.
  6. ^ "Freelance writer Ruth Shalit Barrett sues The Atlantic for $1 million". POLITICO. Retrieved January 10, 2022.
  7. ^ Robertson, Katie (January 9, 2022). "Freelance Writer Accuses The Atlantic of Defamation". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved August 16, 2023.
  8. ^ "American Journalism Review - Archives". ajrarchive.org. Retrieved January 10, 2022.
  9. ^ Young, Cathy. "Truth, Lies, and Second Chances". cathy.arcdigital.media. Retrieved January 10, 2022.
  10. ^ "Goodbye to All That: Has former New Republic starlet Ruth Shalit left Washington in the dust--or is it the other way around?". April 9, 1999. Archived from the original on November 2, 2020. Retrieved November 2, 2020.
  11. ^ a b Wemple, Erik (October 24, 2020). "Opinion: Ruth Shalit just wrote for the Atlantic. Would readers know it from the byline?". Washington Post. Archived from the original on October 31, 2020.
  12. ^ "Robertson Barrett Named President of Digital Media for Hearst Newspapers". finance.yahoo.com. Archived from the original on November 5, 2020. Retrieved November 2, 2020.
  13. ^ "Goodbye to All That". Washington City Paper. April 9, 1999. Archived from the original on March 25, 2019. Retrieved March 25, 2019.
  14. ^ "American Journalism Review". ajrarchive.org. Retrieved March 25, 2019.
  15. ^ "Bostonphoenix.com". Archived from the original on October 15, 2006. Retrieved October 3, 2006.
  16. ^ Rosenberg, Matthew J. (March 15, 1999). "MEDIA TALK; A Writer With a Past Turns to Advertising". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on September 11, 2017. Retrieved March 25, 2019.
  17. ^ "Opinion | Ruth Shalit just wrote for the Atlantic. Would readers know it from the byline?". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved January 10, 2022.
  18. ^ a b Robertson, Katie (January 9, 2022). "Freelance Writer Accuses The Atlantic of Defamation". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved January 10, 2022.
  19. ^ a b Barrett, Story by Ruth Shalit. "The Mad, Mad World of Niche Sports Among Ivy League–Obsessed Parents". The Atlantic. ISSN 1072-7825. Archived from the original on October 31, 2020. Retrieved October 31, 2020.
  20. ^ Elahe Izadi; Paul Farhi (December 18, 2020). "The New York Times could not verify ISIS claims in its 'Caliphate' podcast. Now it's returning a prestigious award". The Washington Post. Retrieved January 8, 2021. The Atlantic magazine retracted a story last month about affluent parents who push their children into niche sports after it said it could not "attest to the trustworthiness and credibility of the author," Ruth Shalit Barrett, "and therefore we cannot attest to the veracity of the article."
  21. ^ "Ruth Shalit Barrett's Defamation Lawsuit Against The Atlantic Survives in Part". Reason.com. September 9, 2024. Retrieved October 21, 2024.
  22. ^ Bernie, Pazanowski (September 11, 2024). "The Atlantic Must Face Some of Freelancer's Defamation Claims". Bloomberg Law. Retrieved October 21, 2024.
  23. ^ "The Atlantic Must Face Writer's Trimmed Defamation Suit - Law360". www.law360.com. Retrieved October 22, 2024.
  24. ^ "Barrett v. Atl. Monthly Grp., Civil Action 22-49 (LLA) | Casetext Search + Citator". casetext.com. Retrieved October 22, 2024.
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