No, Ivanka Trump didn’t plagiarize one of her speeches in India

That this needs to be said is a bit embarrassing, but that’s the reality we’re in today.

Newsweek, which has been on a sort of downward spiral of astonishingly bad reporting recently, published the following headline this week: “Ivanka Trump plagiarizes one of her own speeches in India.”

For the casual reader, the headline is clear: first daughter Ivanka Trump, or some member of her team, lifted material from another source and included it in a speech without the proper attribution.

But this isn’t the case. Rather, the speech highlighted by Newsweek featured material recycled from an earlier, original speech delivered by the president’s oldest daughter.

That’s not plagiarism.

The Newsweek story has since been amended so that the headline now reads, “Ivanka Trump Recycles One of Her Own Speeches in India.” The article also includes an editor’s note that reads, “The headline of this story was changed to reflect that Trump reused portions of an earlier speech rather than ‘plagiarized’ it.”

That’s kind of a big difference, fellas.

But putting Newsweek’s obvious bungle aside for a moment, there’s still a problem. The fact that Trump used recycled material for a public address is hardly newsworthy. In fact, it’s not really newsworthy at all. Has anyone currently employed by Newsweek covered a public figure before?

Public figures recycle themes and anecdotes all the time.

As a person who was assigned to cover Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, I heard the same slogans, phrases, and jokes told hundreds of times by not just the nominee, but also by her massive stable of surrogates.

Public figures often have agendas. As such, you’re going to hear them repeat themselves often.

So, what’s the news here with Ivanka Trump recycling one of her speeches? Put simply, there is no news.

It seems pretty clear Newsweek bungled the story badly, and the amended version is a sad attempt to salvage its initial “scoop.”

We’ve asked before whether someone should tell Newsweek it’s time to pack it up and go home.

They published a report last month that repeatedly referred to Kenneth Starr as a “former Watergate investigator.” Before that, Newsweek retracted an entire story alleging incorrectly that the girlfriend of the man who shot and killed 59 people at a country music festival in Las Vegas had two Social Security numbers. Before that, the newsgroup published the wild, nonsense claim that Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., had imposed some sort of creepy, theocratic dress code for female reporters who cover Congress’ lower chamber.

And then Newsweek published this bogus nonsense involving Ivanka Trump.

We’re not saying it’s time Newsweek close shop, but maybe it’s time Newsweek close shop.