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April 1, 2016updated 08 Apr 2016 4:30pm

Sky’s economics editor Ed Conway accuses FT of ‘statistical plagiarism’

By John Reynolds

Sky’s economics editor Ed Conway has accused the Financial Times of “statistical plagiarism” after he said the business title took data from his blog without attribution.

Conway wrote a blog on Wednesday on the woes of British Steel which included data charts (sourced from a number of different channels) showing steel output in UK and China. The blog was published on Conway’s own website.

One of the data charts has been published by the Financial Times without attributing that it was sourced from Conway’s blog.

Conway said on Twitter:

Conway, who has nearly 30,000 followers on the social network, later tweeted that an FT journalist has contacted him about the data. To verify this, Conway published a screen grab of the letter.

Conway, who is also a columnist with The Times, later appeared to adopt a more conciliatory tone.

The FT said it has subsequently attributed one of the sources as Conway's blog.

A spokesman for the FT said: " At the time of publication, we credited the World Steel Association as it appeared on the original chart in question. As soon it came to our attention that the chart warranted additional sourcing, we immediately corrected the chart. We take sourcing and data very seriously."

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