Does Glenn Beck Steal Material? Beck Says No. Those He [Allegedly] Stole From Say Yes.
Reported by Aunty Em - April 19, 2011 -
Now that Glenn Beck is “transitioning” away from his elevated perch on the Fox “News” Channel, it would seem that he’s now Fair Game. Mind you, he’s always been fair game for people who think. However, now that there’s blood in the water Conservative bloggers are circling. They now see him as the bloviating charlatan he really is. What’s more, they no longer want to remain silent about it and are telling the world, or at least those who read Daily Caller, that Glenn Beck lifts material wholesale without attribution. There have always been rumors Beck was stealing some of his wacky conspiracy theories from Alex Jones. Even Alex Jones thinks so. However, as Mathew Boyle of The Daily Caller has found, it’s not just Jones being ripped off. Many Conservative bloggers have told DC how he purloins their material, even to the point of delivering it word for word, or showing entire videos, without attribution. What’s more, these Conservatives are doing it for attribution, on the record.
It’s a long article, spread over 4 mouse clicks. To summarize: it details how bloggers and videographers have tuned in to the Beck tee vee Caliphate Cavalcade only to find their work used without Beck giving credit. In some cases the snub occurred after one of Beck’s producers (read: Crack Research Team) spent most of the day on the phone with them, dangling a possible appearance on the Beck show, while draining them of all research material. Once the source is drained of all useful information, however, the invite to appear with Beck mysteriously dries up. As Boyle writes: [Note to Beck: That was an attribution.]
It’s not only conservatives who’ve seen their work used by Beck without attribution. Last December, Beck played an interview with longtime radical Bill Ayers on his radio show. “This is an exclusive, I believe from TheBlaze.com right now,” Beck said on air, before playing the audio. “It is Bill Ayers talking about WikiLeaks. In it, he does not denounce violence of the Weather Underground.” In fact, though Beck never mentioned it, the interview was not a Blaze exclusive. It had been lifted from the liberal website, Citizen’s Radio.In February of this year, Beck announced on the radio that he had created a new motto for his website, The Blaze. “This is the slogan that I wrote for The Blaze,” Beck said. “We’ve put it up everywhere here and we’ve written it out for The Blaze. And it is: ‘The truth has no agenda.’”
But in fact, this was not the truth. Beck did not write any such slogan for The Blaze. According to GoDaddy.com website domain name registration records, a man named Michael Opelka bought the domain “truthhasnoagenda.com” in July 2009. Beck has since hired Opelka to work for The Blaze. Shortly thereafter, Beck began selling “The Truth Has No Agenda” merchandise.
Stung by the criticism, both Beck and The Blaze came out to defend both Beck and The Blaze, suggesting this is payback because both Beck and The Blaze had put the lie to James O’Keefe’s recent phony NPR sting.
Video courtesy of MMfA
Beck: Okay. There is a—there are also other things in this story that I—apparently—umm—and we’ll have a response to this—umm, but apparently I am stealing material from all kinds of people. Let me tell you this. First: if you steal from me, you’ve stolen twice. I learned that from Charlie Brown in Seattle years and years and years and years ago. Umm. There is no original idea. Are there pieces that people do, videos that we play? Yes. If you go to The Blaze right now—I don’t know how this works—let me go on, I’m just going to click—okay there’s “Share the pain, Mika.” When I click on the video to watch the video on The Blaze, it goes to the YouTube posting or it goes to the websites. So, we’re not taking your material, we’re driving the traffic to your site.
However, this is typical of Beck’s dishonesty. One accusation is that Beck deliberately obscures the source of his material for his tee vee show. Boyle again: [Attribution again.]
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.“I put my website name on there for a reason – to bring people from the movement to my website so they can see the other stuff that I’ve done,” the man behind Rebel Pundit told TheDC. “You’ve got pretty much the biggest guy in the movement take your stuff and actually have his editors spend the time to scrub my name off of it.”
The Blaze, student of Glenn Beck deceptions, is taking the same phony defense, despite evidence to the contrary. Scott Baker, Editor-in-ThiefChief at The Blaze says:*
I certainly understand the frustrations of any writer or blogger who feels their contributions are being slighted. It’s happened to me hundreds of times!At The Blaze, we link and cite hundreds of news and blog sites each week. It’s been a major part of Glenn’s push to do just that.
[…]
We are amused that Glenn is accused (in a factually-flawed way) of co-opting the phrase, “The Truth Has No Agenda” from his friend Mike Opelka. Mike is indeed a writer for The Blaze (as the article notes), but Glenn has worked collaboratively on projects with Mike since the 1980s — indeed Glenn was the best man in Mike’s wedding.
Nuptuals aside, as Media Matters explains, this has turned into a good, old-fashioned, 3-way, Internet War between The Daily Caller, Andrew Breitbart, and Glenn Beck:
And, as you'd expect, Breitbart is leading the anti-Beck charge. He was the first person quoted attacking Beck in the Daily Caller's piece from this morning, and in an interview to the Daily Beast he accused Beck of a cardinal sin: appeasing Media Matters:[Breitbart:] In recent months he's started to use a phrase called, "The truth has no agenda" and he's used it to try and position himself against his conservative competitors to try and appease Media Matters and Voice of Change and his detractors, but if he's going to become the arbiter of how journalism is going to be done then he's opening himself to criticism... he was able to have a neverending stream of content over the last few years and there are a lot of bloggers and videographers who have been outraged by his methodology. I think he owes them an apology.
Pass the popcorn.
*It has always been my practice to attribute The Blaze only when absolutely necessary and without providing a link. As Beck says: Don’t take my word for it. Do your own research.
