Former N&O reporter sues over plagiarism accusation, overtime pay

A former reporter for The News & Observer has filed a lawsuit against the newspaper over the handling and reporting of a plagiarism investigation last year.

The reporter, Anne Blythe, lost her job at the N&O in July 2018 after a writer from another publication complained that portions of her own work had been copied without proper attribution.

The News & Observer’s executive editor, Robyn Tomlin, said in a note to readers at that time that a review of more than 600 stories written by Blythe had identified “at least a dozen that contained phrases, sentences or, in some cases, whole paragraphs, lifted from other publications.”

In the lawsuit filed Tuesday against Tomlin, the newspaper’s corporate owner The News and Observer Publishing Company and one of its sister companies, McClatchy Newspapers, Inc., Blythe disputes that statement and says she was not given a fair chance to respond to the allegations.

The suit alleges that Tomlin’s 2018 note, which is attached to Blythe’s complaint filed this week, contained false statements and defamed Blythe, preventing her from earning a living as a journalist.

The lawsuit accuses the news organization of both libel and violations of overtime laws. It does not ask for a specific amount of money, but does request punitive damages as well as a correction or retraction of the note.

Blythe had more than 30 years of experience with The News & Observer and its sister publications.

This story was originally published August 7, 2019 at 5:16 PM.