Conservatives hit Beck for taking content without attribution

By any standard, Beck seems unusually reliant on the work of others, and unusually reluctant to credit it. In an interview with TheDC, Roger L. Simon, CEO of Pajamas Media, suggested that Beck has committed the journalistic equivalent of a notorious crime. “It is not a question of just doing it right the majority of the time. It is a question of doing it right always,” Simon said. “Doris Kearns Goodwin is forever a fraud in my estimation because she has been caught plagiarizing once. If you rob a bank once, you still robbed a bank.”

A remarkably large number of conservative writers say they feel robbed. During the March 18 airing of his television program, for example, Beck ran a portion of video created by a Chicago-based blogger who calls himself Rebel Pundit. The blogger, who does not publicly reveal his name, says he was initially pleased to see Beck running his video, which featured left-wing protesters demanding amnesty for illegal immigrants. He was soon shocked, however, to see that Beck’s staff had obscured the watermark logo of his website, RebelPundit.com, from the tape…

Beck’s office responds to complaints like these by pointing out that Beck is a busy man who broadcasts in one form or another for nearly 1,000 hours a year. “Anyone could find examples of stories they think should have been sourced differently,” Beck’s representatives told TheDC. “In addition, many stories mentioned have multiple sources. Glenn’s shows have a high-standard and a long history of championing bloggers and attributing sources whenever possible including frequently providing extensive footnotes on GlennBeck.com. For example, The Blaze has already linked to The Daily Caller over 40 times, and the shows have cited a wide-range of bloggers, websites and reports over and over again.”…

Last January, Andrew Marcus of FoundingBloggers.com uploaded a video interview he’d conducted with Polish Solidarity leader Lech Walesa. The next morning on his radio show, Beck played a portion of the Walesa exchange, but never mentioned where it came from or who conducted the interview. “I don’t steal their stuff,” Marcus told TheDC. “They get credit, they get links and they get attribution. I think they’d be upset if people were lifting their stuff and not giving attribution. Fair use is fair use, but it includes attribution.”