Ruth Shalit


Ruth Shalit is a freelance writer and former journalist, dismissed from The New Republic for plagiarism and inaccuracy.
Shalit graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Princeton University in 1992. Early in her career she wrote for GQ and the New York Times Magazine before becoming an associate editor for The New Republic at the age of 24.
In 1994 and 1995, Shalit was discovered to have plagiarized portions of several articles she wrote for New Republic.
In the fall of 1995, Shalit wrote a 13,000-word piece about race relations at The Washington Post. 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.
She left the New Republic in January 1999.

Personal life

Ruth Shalit is the sister of conservative writer and author Wendy Shalit. She married internet executive Robertson Barrett in September 2004, becoming the stepdaughter-in-law of Edward Klein. Barrett was the Vice President of Media Strategy and Operations at Yahoo! before becoming the president of Hearst's digital division in 2016.
She now lives in Westport, Connecticut, with her husband and two children.