The New York Times is blowing the whistle on a business reporter who "appears to have improperly appropriated wording and passages published by other news organizations." They identify two plagiarized WSJ articles and allude to "other cases of extensive overlap."

Though the Times' studiously avoids the word "plagiarize," its correction says Kouwe "reused language from The Wall Street Journal, Reuters and other sources without attribution or acknowledgment." WSJ editors caught him and "alerted" NYT, which kind enough to provide links to the two instances of WSJ plagiarism, but doesn't inform us when or how many times Kouwe copied Reuters and "other sources." The Times concludes by explaining that copying without attributing is very naughty: "The matter remains under investigation" and the Times "will take appropriate action."

HuffPo provides side-by-side comparisons of Kouwe's prose and passages from the Wall Street Journal. In the manner of recently resigned Daily Beast plagiarist Gerald Posner, Kouwe's trouble spots seem to be banal background passages, dry sentences about Madoff asset freezes that are probably as painful to write as they are to pore over in search of repetition.

Zachery Kouwe left the New York Post in 2008 for the Times' business page and DealBook, the Andrew Ross Sorkin-led finance blog. Kouwe's NYT profile says he grew up in Tampa, went to Hamilton for college, and to University of Colorado for J-school.

If you find an instance of Kouwe copycatting or can fill in other blanks, drop us a line. [NYTPick] [HuffPo]