Talk:Chris Hedges

That one plagiarism allegation, revisited

There is an older relevant talk page discussion that already ironed out most of this business. The points made in that prior discussion should be consulted, especially BLP concerns. I will die on the hill that even mentioning the singular sentence from Ernest Hemingway that was copied by error into War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning is wholly unwarranted for a WP:BLP. I already made a little section on it in the book's wiki article. Additionally, there has been minimal coverage of the incident beyond 2014. There haven't been any newer allegations since Ketcham's work. Putting a big, scary "plagiarism" heading anywhere on the bio page of a writer requires more substance. Mewnst (talk) 08:58, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Hedges is, in fact, a plagiarist. The New Republic piece spells out his many ethical lapses. This wiki article actually significantly downplays just how egregious his plagiarism was.

Later adding the relevant attributions does not get Hedges off the hook. He lifted entire passages and lied about being given permission to copy said language. Clydey2Times (talk) 09:42, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

Hedges simply does not fit the profile of a plagiarist. From all the scrutiny following the 2014 allegations, the charge has not stuck around to implicate his (large) corpus of original writing. There's frankly been only one new allegation over the matter since Ketcham (more on that later), which hardly follows the picture he paints of Hedges being a methodical and serial patchwork plagiarist. Consider how Hedges has written 15 books and a couple thousand articles. Over a decade on, where is the troubling behavior? Why is there nothing? In addition to the Type Media Center not substantiating the charges, The New York Times made a statement published by The Washington Free Beacon that they were "...not aware of any such concerns about Chris's work for The Times," declining to investigate Hedges. I pared out this Beacon reference because I wanted to avoid flogging Ketcham's work and keep the section from reaching an undue length, but I bring it up to point out that not many works are implicated in the kinds of lapses Ketcham looks at.

Another consideration is that this page is a WP:BLP. Negative content requires substantiated sourcing. Since hindsight has not been kind to Ketcham's strongly worded allegations, it is necessary for the page to weight the content accordingly. Ketcham also mentions (but avoids further acknowledging) a bias against Hedges because one improperly sourced Truthdig article implicated his wife's writing. Parading Ketcham alone for Hedges' errors is a mistake. I'll raise you one better: Gawker. Although this reference has the problems of being Gawker, Adam Weinstein notes something that doesn't get enough exposure. Hedges has all that original (and beautiful, and lovely) Hedgian writing to draw from, and endlessly re-uses it because he has the rights to do so. Here's a statement from Hedges that makes this clear:

"I think it is important to remember that I usually always retain ownership of my work," Hedges told Gawker. "If I used my own concepts and even words in different venues, they are still my own—that is not plagiarism. I have produced hundreds of thousands of words of printed copy. If from time to time errors slip in, I correct them when I become aware of them or they are pointed out. What matters is intent."

This is the crux of the issues with Hedges' writing and attitude with regards to the ethics confrontation. He has demonstrably written lots of genuine stuff (hence many flatly refusing the overblown charge that he's a plagiarist), and then got markedly lazy with his rehashed and republished online media presence (culminating in the plagiarism charge). This easy New Media hustle is what put food on his table at an uncertain point in his career and made Chris Ketcham hate him. It's not the sexy ethics gotcha his detractors want. And, it's why I limited the plagiarism allegation to the Truthdig section, since these issues almost exclusively showed in his self-published online works. Man needs an editor. Mewnst (talk) 11:13, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

Tagged the section as it now gives massive undue weight to the allegations, which have received no coverage in reliable sources since 2014. It was a flash in the pan and the previous version was giving it adequate coverage. Now it is overkill.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 09:52, 9 April 2026 (UTC)

The same editor has inserted the text three times after being reverted. In addition to giving undue emphasis to an issue that is based largely on one article, the writing lacks neutrality, including a peppering of words to watch. The section opens with an editorial comment "Hedges has been the subject of several plagiarism controversies over his career". On one hand, Ketcham "details how", "Ketcham was able to identify", "Ketcham and The New Republic ... refut[ed] Hedges's claims". On the other hand, "Hedges claims", "The Nation Institute claimed", "Truthdig claimed". Toss in an "although still" and a "despite". Burrobert (talk) 15:23, 9 April 2026 (UTC)

Given the sourcing I’d say the entire section can be reduced to like one paragraph, maybe two. The writing is definitely not neutral and reads like someone pushing an agenda. I almost reverted again but would like to get consensus on talk before doing so, which should prevent further edit warring on this issue. Perhaps an entire rewrite is in order to conform to NPOV. C.J. Griffin (talk) 15:48, 9 April 2026 (UTC)

Update: Given the current version violates NPOV and is therefore wildly inappropriate for a WP:BLP, I am considering reverting to the previous version in a few days. Thoughts on this?--C.J. Griffin (talk) 14:08, 11 April 2026 (UTC)

I would support that. The current text was added by @ScythianR1b: with the explanation "restoring well-sourced content that was inexplicably removed". The exact same material was initially added in March 2024 by @DV79: and quickly reverted. The recent addition comes under the wp:BRD policy so, since it is contested, it should be removed and a discussion initiated. Burrobert (talk) 17:10, 11 April 2026 (UTC)

Put "Political views" into chronological order?

Would it not improve readability if the various paragraphs in the "Political views" section were put into chronological order? At the moment it jumps from 2008 straight to the Ukraine invasion (2022) and Israel-Palestine war (2024), but then moves back to 2014, further back to 2011 and 2012, and finally bounces back to 2024 again. Will-o-the-west (talk) 00:19, 17 February 2025 (UTC)