Time, CNN reinstate Zakaria after plagiarism review

Journalist Fareed Zakaria speaks after accepting a Peabody award for the work done on his television news program ''Fareed Zakaria GPS'' during the 71st annual Peabody Awards ceremony in New York, May 21, 2012.

REUTERS - Time magazine and CNN said on Thursday they were reinstating journalist Fareed Zakaria after suspending him last week for plagiarism.

Time said in a statement that it believed Zakaria made an "unintentional error" in what was an "isolated incident" in a recent column on gun control for the magazine that he took from another writer.

"We look forward to having Fareed's thoughtful and important voice back in the magazine with his next column in the issue that comes out on September 7," Time said in a statement.

Cable news channel CNN said that after a thorough internal review of Zakaria's work on his Sunday TV shows, blogs and documentaries, "we found nothing that merited continuing the suspension."

"Zakaria has apologized for a journalistic lapse. CNN and Zakaria will work together to strengthen further the procedures for his show and blog," CNN said. It said Zakaria's public affairs program "GPS" will return on August 26.

Time said last week that it was suspending Zakaria for one month after the respected journalist issued a public apology for borrowing from an April New Yorker essay about gun control in a column he wrote for his publication.

CNN put no time limit on its suspension after Zakaria wrote a blog post on CNN.com that was similar to the Time column.

Zakaria studied at Yale and Harvard, was managing editor of Foreign Affairs magazine, then editor of Newsweek International for 10 years before moving to CNN in 2010.

His suspension followed a separate plagiarism scandal involving New Yorker staff writer Jonah Lehrer, who resigned on July 30 after admitting he made up quotes from singer-songwriter Bob Dylan in his book "Imagine: How Creativity Works."

(Reporting by Jill Serjeant in Los Angeles; Editing by Bob Tourtellotte and Lisa Shumaker)