Plagiarist Posner Punted from 'Daily Beast'

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Author/attorney Gerald Posner, the chief investigative reporter for Tina Brown's year-old Internet news site The Daily Beast, has quit the online publication amid charges of plagiarism.

According to a report in today's Miami Herald, Posner blogged and tweeted his resignation from The Daily Beast after a discussion with Managing Editor Edward Felsenthal concerning an internal investigation of alleged plagiarism by Posner, the author of 11 books, including Miami Babylon. The internal probe was prompted by initial accounts by Slate.com's Jack Shafer that revealed a purported instance of Posner filching five sentences from a Miami Herald article.  A follow-up piece by Shafter alleged multiple instances of Posner plagiarizing works from The Miami Herald, Texas Lawyer, and a journalism blog devoted to healthcare issues.

Reportedly, Posner attributed cribbing others' writings to his "master electronic files system" and the "warp speed of the Net." Way to step up and accept responsibility for one's actions.