Jonah Lehrer, the science journalist currently employed by "The New Yorker" is being called out for plagiarizing. But there's a catch. He's been caught plagiarizing from himself.  In other words, he has lifted his own past written work and used it in a new publication. Some are calling him a plagiarizer while others are not so sure his gaffe qualifies as plagiarism.

It all started on Tuesday when media blogger Jim Romenesko found that for a New Yorker blog post, Lehrer had copied from an article he had previously written for the Wall Street Journal.

The New Yorker issues a statement of apology as did Lehrer.  He told a New York Times reporter "It was a stupid thing to do and incredibly lazy and absolutely wrong."

But he was found guilty of rehashing his work in not just one instance. There were several examples in not only his writings for the New Yorker but countless others as well as his book "Imagine." Houghton Mifflin Harcourt issued a statement saying, "Jonah Lehrer fully acknowledges that 'Imagine' draws upon work he has published in shorter form during the past several years and is sorry that was not made clear," the statement said. "He owns the rights to the relevant articles, so no permission was needed. He will add language to the acknowledgments noting his prior work."

But not everyone thinks what Lehrer did is such a crime and if it is, they say it's a minor one.  His colleague, the prolific and popular writer Malcolm Gladwell said the following, "The conventions surrounding what is and is not acceptable in magazine writing, books and speaking have been worked out over the past 100 years. The conventions over blogging are being worked out as we speak," Gladwell told WWD. "Everyone who writes for a living is going to learn from this. I'm just sorry Jonah had to bear the brunt of it." 

The New Yorker has not terminated Lehrer and by all accounts, it seems he'll be able to keep his job.