We, the writers of Snopes, feel it is incumbent upon us to clearly and publicly acknowledge that BuzzFeed has discovered incontrovertible evidence that the co-founder and CEO of Snopes, David Mikkelson, has written and published multiple articles which contained sentences taken from other sources without proper attribution. We strongly condemn these poor journalistic practices.
No writer participated in this behavior, nor did any editors — Doreen Marchionni, Camille Knox, and David Emery — support or encourage these practices. We have all been held to very high journalistic standards, both by our editors and by our audience. Although none of us was to blame for the actions of Snopes’ co-founder, we empathize with the journalists whose work was appropriated. This simply should never have happened.
Under the leadership and guidance of Marchionni, Knox, and Emery, we work hard every day to uphold the highest possible journalistic and ethical standards, and we believe our fact checks, original reporting and investigative work are a testament to those high standards. We are proud of our editors and proud of the work we do.
— Alex Kasprak, Dan Evon, Jessica Lee, Nur Ibrahim, Jordan Liles, Madison Dapcevich, Dan Mac Guill, Bethania Palma