A group of eagle-eyed puzzlers, using digital tools, has uncovered a pattern of copying in the professional crossword-puzzle world that has led to accusations of plagiarism and false identity.
Since 1999, Timothy Parker, editor of one of the nation’s most widely syndicated crosswords, has edited more than 60 individual puzzles that copy elements from New York Times puzzles, often with pseudonyms for bylines, a new database has helped reveal. The puzzles in question repeated themes, answers, grids and clues from Times puzzles published years earlier. Hundreds more of the puzzles edited by Parker are nearly verbatim copies of previous puzzles that Parker also edited. Most of those have been republished under fake author names.
Nearly all this replication was found in two crosswords series edited by Parker: the USA Today Crossword and the syndicated Universal Crossword. (The copyright to both puzzles is held by Universal Uclick, which grew out of the former Universal Press Syndicate and calls itself “the leading distributor of daily puzzle and word games.”) USA Today is one of the country’s highest-circulation newspapers, and the Universal Crossword is syndicated to hundreds of newspapers and websites.
On Friday, a publicity coordinator for Universal Uclick, Julie Halper, said the company declined to comment on the allegations. FiveThirtyEight reached out to USA Today for comment several times but received no response.
When I spoke with Parker on Thursday, he didn’t deny that many of his puzzles exactly replicated themes and theme answers from Times puzzles. “To me, it’s just mere coincidence,” he said. He did deny that themes were purposefully replicated with his knowledge and claimed that he hadn’t looked at a New York Times crossword in years. “We don’t look at anybody else’s puzzles or really care about anyone else’s puzzles,” Parker said.
Despite Parker’s denial, many in the crossword world see willful plagiarism in Parker’s puzzles, and they see the database that revealed the repetition as a tool of justice. “It’s like a murder mystery solved 50 years later with DNA evidence,” Matt Gaffney, a professional crossword constructor, told me.
1,090 Universal puzzles and 447 USA Today puzzles were at least a 75 percent match to an earlier puzzle
Will Shortz, the puzzle editor for The New York Times, was taken aback by Parker’s replications. “I have never heard of something like this happening before,” he told me. “This would never have come to light except in the electronic age, where you can track these things.” He added: “To me, it’s an obvious case of plagiarism. It’s unethical, and I would never publish a person who plagiarizes another person’s work.”
Parker has been the editor of the Universal Crossword for over 15 years and began editing the USA Today Crossword in 2003. In 2000, Parker earned a Guinness record for “most syndicated puzzle compiler.” There’s no public list of Universal’s clients, but its newspaper clients include the New York Daily News, Boston Globe, Dallas Morning News, Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail in Toronto, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Denver Post and Hartford Courant. Its other clients include CBS News, Merriam-Webster, Smithsonian Magazine and Yahoo. Parker’s crossword ventures, according to a 2003 article in People, made him a “multimillionaire.”
Since 1999, Timothy Parker, editor of one of the nation’s most widely syndicated crosswords, has edited more than 60 individual puzzles that copy elements from New York Times puzzles, often with pseudonyms for bylines, a new database has helped reveal. The puzzles in question repeated themes, answers, grids and clues from Times puzzles published years earlier. Hundreds more of the puzzles edited by Parker are nearly verbatim copies of previous puzzles that Parker also edited. Most of those have been republished under fake author names.
Nearly all this replication was found in two crosswords series edited by Parker: the USA Today Crossword and the syndicated Universal Crossword. (The copyright to both puzzles is held by Universal Uclick, which grew out of the former Universal Press Syndicate and calls itself “the leading distributor of daily puzzle and word games.”) USA Today is one of the country’s highest-circulation newspapers, and the Universal Crossword is syndicated to hundreds of newspapers and websites.
On Friday, a publicity coordinator for Universal Uclick, Julie Halper, said the company declined to comment on the allegations. FiveThirtyEight reached out to USA Today for comment several times but received no response.
When I spoke with Parker on Thursday, he didn’t deny that many of his puzzles exactly replicated themes and theme answers from Times puzzles. “To me, it’s just mere coincidence,” he said. He did deny that themes were purposefully replicated with his knowledge and claimed that he hadn’t looked at a New York Times crossword in years. “We don’t look at anybody else’s puzzles or really care about anyone else’s puzzles,” Parker said.
Despite Parker’s denial, many in the crossword world see willful plagiarism in Parker’s puzzles, and they see the database that revealed the repetition as a tool of justice. “It’s like a murder mystery solved 50 years later with DNA evidence,” Matt Gaffney, a professional crossword constructor, told me.
1,090 Universal puzzles and 447 USA Today puzzles were at least a 75 percent match to an earlier puzzle
Will Shortz, the puzzle editor for The New York Times, was taken aback by Parker’s replications. “I have never heard of something like this happening before,” he told me. “This would never have come to light except in the electronic age, where you can track these things.” He added: “To me, it’s an obvious case of plagiarism. It’s unethical, and I would never publish a person who plagiarizes another person’s work.”
Parker has been the editor of the Universal Crossword for over 15 years and began editing the USA Today Crossword in 2003. In 2000, Parker earned a Guinness record for “most syndicated puzzle compiler.” There’s no public list of Universal’s clients, but its newspaper clients include the New York Daily News, Boston Globe, Dallas Morning News, Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail in Toronto, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Denver Post and Hartford Courant. Its other clients include CBS News, Merriam-Webster, Smithsonian Magazine and Yahoo. Parker’s crossword ventures, according to a 2003 article in People, made him a “multimillionaire.”
