Penguin Random House has suspended promotion and public sales of a forthcoming book by journalist Ross Barkan following allegations of extensive plagiarism in political columns he wrote as a freelancer for New York Magazine.
Barkan’s book “The Revolutionary: Zohran Mamdani and the Remaking of American Politics” was set for publication in October. Earlier this summer, Barkan was urging readers to preorder it “wherever books are sold.”
But by Monday, webpages for the book were no longer accessible on major booksellers Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Target and Walmart.
Penguin Random House also scrubbed the title from its website, though an archived version of the listing is still viewable on the Wayback Machine, a tool built by the nonprofit Internet Archive.
Penguin Random House declined to comment. Barkan did not respond to several requests for comment.
That now-deleted page called the book a “behind-the-scenes, deeply reported window into Zohran Mamdani’s campaign and early days as Mayor of New York … from a New York magazine journalist with unparalleled access.”
New York severed its affiliation with Barkan following its scrutiny of his writing.
In May, Washington Post reporter Drew Harwell raised concerns to editors and on social media that Barkan had published a column about conservative commentator Ben Shapiro that closely resembled an article of his own. New York later updated the article to credit Harwell.
NPR said it found additional instances of potential copying, and New York announced that it had begun a review of Barkan’s work. That review concluded, and Friday the magazine said it had ended its relationship with Barkan.
“After an independent editorial review, New York found that Ross Barkan did not adhere to our editorial standards, and we have updated 67 columns that did not include proper attribution of language, information, and/or sourcing,” Lauren Starke, a spokeswoman for the magazine’s parent company, Vox Media, wrote Friday in a statement. “Upon conclusion of the review, we have determined that we will no longer publish his column. We regret that this work did not live up to our editorial standards, and apologize to the writers whose work was not properly attributed.”
David Haskell, the magazine’s editor in chief, told staffers in a Friday message, obtained by The Post, that the publication is “working to ensure that our freelancers are aware of our editorial guidelines and fact checking standards, and considering how we might adjust some of our processes to prevent this from happening again.” He reminded staffers to be “diligent in attributing the work that you reference, no matter how quickly you are writing.”
Barkan is a prolific writer who focuses on New York politics, and his relationship with Mamdani (D) dates back years: When Barkan ran unsuccessfully for New York State Senate in 2018, Mamdani served as his campaign manager.
He writes a politics newsletter called Political Currents, and serves as the editor in chief of a literary and culture publication called the Metropolitan Review, both of which are published on Substack.
Barkan has published four novels — “Demolition Night” (2018), “The Night Burns Bright (2022), “Glass Century” (2025) and “Colossus” (2026) — and two nonfiction books, “The Prince” (2021) about former New York governor Andrew M. Cuomo and “Fascism or Genocide” (2025) about political disorder.
He was named a contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine in 2023 but has not written for the magazine since 2025. That said, the editors have found no wrongdoing. “Times editors have looked at Barkan’s past work for us and found nothing that violates our standards,” Times spokesman Charlie Stadtlander wrote in a statement.
Barkan also is listed as an adjunct faculty member at New York University’s journalism school.
In a statement to the website Semafor on Friday, Barkan said he would be writing a new column for the left-wing magazine the Nation. However, a spokeswoman for the Nation, Caitlin Graf, told The Post on Monday: “Ross Barkan is not under contract to write a column for The Nation. We are conducting an internal review in the wake of New York’s announcement.”
Aaron Schaffer contributed to this report.
The post Publisher suspends sales of journalist’s book after plagiarism review appeared first on Washington Post.
