Ruth Shalit Explained

Ruth Shalit Barrett
Birth Name:Ruth Shalit
Birth Place:Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S.
Spouse:Robertson Barrett (m. 2004)
Relatives:Wendy Shalit
Alma Mater:Princeton University
Occupation:Writer, journalist

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

In 1999, she resigned from The New Republic after allegations of plagiarism and inaccuracy stretching over several years.[5] 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.[6]

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.[7] [8]

She is the sister of conservative writer and author Wendy Shalit.[9] She married Henry Robertson Barrett IV in 2004,[10] 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.[11]

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

Plagiarism and inaccuracies

New Republic

In 1994 and 1995, Shalit was discovered to have plagiarized portions of several articles she wrote for New Republic.[12]

In the fall of 1995, Shalit wrote a 13,000-word piece about race relations at The Washington Post.[13] 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.[14]

She left the New Republic in January 1999.[15]

The Atlantic

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 media critic, Erik Wemple,[16] 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".[17] [18] [19]

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".

On January 7, 2022, Shalit sued The Atlantic and Don Peck (the Atlantic print editor at the time of the retraction) in federal court for $1million in damages, arguing that her reputation had been "unlawfully smeared" by the retraction and accompanying editor's note.[20] The Atlantic stood by its retraction and note, and rejected her allegations, describing the lawsuit as "meritless".[17]

See also

External links

Notes and References

  1. News: Shalit. Ruth. 2004-08-24. Young and Republican in Hollywood. en-US. Wall Street Journal. 2022-01-10. 0099-9660.
  2. News: Levenson. Michael. 2020-11-01. The Atlantic Retracts Ruth Shalit Barrett Article on Niche Sports. en-US. The New York Times. 2022-01-10. 0362-4331.
  3. Web site: Barrett. Ruth Shalit. 2018-03-18. Can Leslie Jamison Top The Empathy Exams With Her Mega-Memoir of Addiction?. 2022-01-10. Vulture. en-us.
  4. Web site: Barrett. Ruth S.. 2014-05-02. Mona Simpson Transforms Her Rich Personal Life Into Powerful Fiction. 2022-01-10. ELLE. en-US.
  5. Web site: Freelance writer Ruth Shalit Barrett sues The Atlantic for $1 million. 2022-01-10. POLITICO. en.
  6. News: Robertson . Katie . 2022-01-09 . Freelance Writer Accuses The Atlantic of Defamation . en-US . The New York Times . 2023-08-16 . 0362-4331.
  7. Web site: American Journalism Review - Archives. 2022-01-10. ajrarchive.org.
  8. Web site: Young. Cathy. Truth, Lies, and Second Chances. 2022-01-10. cathy.arcdigital.media.
  9. Web site: 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. live. https://web.archive.org/web/20201102181440/https://washingtoncitypaper.com/article/273495/goodbye-to-all-that/. November 2, 2020. 2020-11-02.
  10. News: Wemple. Erik. Erik Wemple. 2020-10-24. Opinion: Ruth Shalit just wrote for the Atlantic. Would readers know it from the byline?. Washington Post. live. https://web.archive.org/web/20201031194023/https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/10/24/ruth-shalit-just-wrote-atlantic-would-readers-know-it-byline/. October 31, 2020.
  11. Web site: Robertson Barrett Named President of Digital Media for Hearst Newspapers. live. https://web.archive.org/web/20201105194106/https://finance.yahoo.com/news/robertson-barrett-named-president-digital-130000130.html. November 5, 2020. 2020-11-02. finance.yahoo.com. en-US.
  12. Web site: Goodbye to All That. Washington City Paper. April 9, 1999. en. 2019-03-25. March 25, 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20190325135433/https://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/news/article/13017493/goodbye-to-all-that. live.
  13. Web site: American Journalism Review. ajrarchive.org. 2019-03-25.
  14. Web site: Bostonphoenix.com . October 3, 2006 . October 15, 2006 . https://web.archive.org/web/20061015221809/http://www.bostonphoenix.com/alt1/archive/news/quote/RUTH_SHALIT.html . live .
  15. News: MEDIA TALK; A Writer With a Past Turns to Advertising. Rosenberg. Matthew J.. 1999-03-15. The New York Times. 2019-03-25. en-US. 0362-4331. September 11, 2017. https://web.archive.org/web/20170911061547/http://www.nytimes.com/1999/03/15/business/media-talk-a-writer-with-a-past-turns-to-advertising.html. live.
  16. News: Opinion Ruth Shalit just wrote for the Atlantic. Would readers know it from the byline?. en-US. Washington Post. 2022-01-10. 0190-8286.
  17. News: Robertson. Katie. 2022-01-09. Freelance Writer Accuses The Atlantic of Defamation. en-US. The New York Times. 2022-01-10. 0362-4331.
  18. News: Barrett. Story by Ruth Shalit. The Mad, Mad World of Niche Sports Among Ivy League–Obsessed Parents. The Atlantic. 2020-10-31. 1072-7825. October 31, 2020. https://web.archive.org/web/20201031101956/https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/11/squash-lacrosse-niche-sports-ivy-league-admissions/616474/. live.
  19. News: Elahe Izadi . Paul Farhi . The New York Times could not verify ISIS claims in its 'Caliphate' podcast. Now it's returning a prestigious award. . 8 January 2021 . The Washington Post . 18 December 2020 . 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.".
  20. "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.

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