Ruth Shalit

Ruth Shalit (; born 1971), also known as Ruth S. Barrett, is an American freelance writer and journalist. In 1999 she was dismissed from "The New Republic" following claims of plagiarism and inaccuracy.
Shalit graduated 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.
She is the sister of conservative writer and author Wendy Shalit. She married Henry Robertson Barrett IV in 2004, 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.
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."
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.
"The Atlantic".
On October 30, 2020, "The Atlantic" published an 800-word correction to Shalit Barrett's article "The Mad, Mad World of Niche Sports Among Ivy League–Obsessed Parents". It said that the editors had learned that Shalit Barrett had deceived the magazine, its readers, and one anonymous source in a section that used information from a Connecticut mother who used "Sloane" as an alias. The note also stated that Shalit Barrett encouraged a source to fabricate personal details, then to lie to "The Atlantic"s fact-checking staff. "The Atlantic", concerned about transparency, changed the byline from Shalit Barrett's preference, "Ruth S. Barrett", to "Ruth Shalit Barrett."
On November 1, "The Atlantic" updated the correction to announce the magazine had retracted the entire piece. The update said that the magazine was "wrong to make this assignment" that "reflects poor judgment on our part", adding, "We apologize to our readers."