Ruth Shalit
Ruth Shalit Barrett[1] (/ʃəˈliːt/; born 1971[citation needed]) is an American freelance writer and journalist whose articles have appeared in The New Republic, The Wall Street Journal, ELLE, New York Magazine and The Atlantic.[2][3][4][5] In 1994 and 1995, she was discovered to have plagiarized portions of several articles she wrote for the New Republic, and to have made several substantial errors in another.[6] 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.[7] 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.[8][9] She is the sister of conservative writer and author Wendy Shalit.[10] She married Henry Robertson Barrett IV in 2004,[11] 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.[12] As of 2020, Shalit lives in Westport, Connecticut, with her husband and two children.[11] Plagiarism and inaccuraciesNew RepublicIn 1994 and 1995, Shalit was discovered to have plagiarized portions of several articles she wrote for New Republic. One story included unattributed prose by Legal Times writer Daniel Klaidman, another text by National Journal’s Paul Starobin.[13] In the fall of 1995, Shalit wrote a 13,000-word piece about race relations at The Washington Post.[14] 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.[15] She left the New Republic in January 1999.[16] The AtlanticIn 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, under the byline "Ruth S. Barrett", was published online in October 2020 for the November-dated print issue, talked about 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's media critic, Erik Wemple,[17] the magazine appended several corrections to the online version, along with a lengthy editor's note. On November 1, 2020, The Atlantic announced it was retracting the entire article after further investigation, but uploaded a PDF of the article's print version for the sake of "the historical record".[7][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. As the investigation progressed, The Atlantic concluded it could not "attest to (Barrett's) trustworthiness and credibility," and there was 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".[18] On January 7, 2022, Shalit sued The Atlantic and Don Peck (the Atlantic's print editor at the time of the retraction) in federal court for $1 million in damages, arguing that her reputation had been "unlawfully smeared" by the retraction and accompanying editor's note.[1][20] The Atlantic stood by its retraction and note, and rejected her allegations, describing the lawsuit as "meritless".[7] On September 9, 2024, Judge Loren L. AliKhan ruled on the motion to dismiss in the case of Ruth Shalit Barrett v. The Atlantic.[20] The court dismissed Barrett's claims of breach of contract and breach of good faith, stating that she failed to demonstrate specific, non-speculative damages resulting from the alleged breaches. The judge noted that The Atlantic's confidentiality obligations were insufficient to support her claims and that her allegations of harm were too generalized, lacking evidence of tangible losses such as missed writing opportunities.[21] However, the court allowed Barrett's defamation claims to proceed.[20] These claims assert that The Atlantic falsely portrayed her as dishonest, alleging that she misled editors and fact-checkers, fabricated details, and had previously engaged in journalistic malpractice.[20] The court determined that there was sufficient evidence to suggest that these statements could be defamatory and could harm Barrett's reputation and career, warranting further legal examination.[20][22][23][24] In June 2025 the dispute was settled out of court.[20] On June 26, 2025 The Atlantic quietly updated its on‑line editor’s note to clarify that “Sloane” was an anonymous source, that Barrett says she elected to leave The New Republic, and that she did not ask the magazine to publish a novel byline.[20][25] The following day, Barrett and The Atlantic filed a joint stipulation of dismissal with prejudice in U.S. District Court, ending the litigation.[20][26] The terms of the settlement were not disclosed publicly.[20] See alsoReferences
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