Freelance journalist Alexander Zaitchik wrote several stories about Glenn Beck for Salon late last year. This February, the Daily Beast's book imprint published John Avlon's book, Wingnuts. Avlon's chapter on Glenn Beck borrows very liberally from Zaitchik's work. [UPDATED]. 
 
 Here is TDB's excerpt of John Avlon's (pictured at left) section on Glenn Beck. The end of Avlon's chapter is the most problematic. Last November, Zaitchik (pictured at right) wrote a story for Salon called "Glenn Beck's white nationalist fans." In it, Zaitchik visited white power website Stormfront.org, and pulled out several comments there about Glenn Beck. Avlon also cites several of the very same comments about Beck from Stormfront.org—but he cites Stormfront.org itself as his source, with no indication at all that he read Zaitchik's article three months earlier. For example, Zaitchik: 
 
 "Glen [sic] Beck can be useful," said one frequent Stormfront contributor who posts under the name SS_marching. "When Glen beck said 'Obama Has A Deep-Seated Hatred For White People' he is able to reach a much wider audience than we can. They will [be] predisposed to the idea and the next time Obama pushes an anti-white policy they will see it as such." 
 
 Avlon: 
 
 Beck's message resonates beyond Main Street and the Tea Party protests. Down in the white-supremacy cesspool of Stormfront.org, some contributors thought they recognized a fellow traveler. "Glen [sic] Beck can be useful," wrote SS_marching. "When Glen beck said ‘Obama Has A Deep-Seated Hatred For White People' he is able to reach a much wider audience than we can. They will [be] predisposed to the idea and the next time Obama pushes an anti-white policy they will see it as such." 
 
 Zaitchik: 
 
 Later in the same discussion thread, Thor357 added: "I have talked to 6 people in two days because Glenn Beck woke them up, it's amazing how angry they are. They are pissing fire over Obama, this is a good thing. Now I educate them. If out of 100 of the Glen Beckers I keep 20 then I have won 20 more to cover my back side. I never lost the 80 as they never were." 
 
 Avlon: 
 
 Frequent Stormfront poster Thor357 sees Beck as a recruiting tool: "I have talked to 6 people in two days because Glenn Beck woke them up, it's amazing how angry they are. They are pissing fire over Obama, this is a good thing. Now I educate them." 
 
 Zaitchik: 
 
 Carolina Patriot, whose member picture features a kitten aiming an assassin's rifle, was conflicted but admiring: "Every now and again when an infomercial takes the place of hunting or fishing, I'll turn over to Glenn Beck if he's on and watch his show. Sometimes it is amusing, sometimes it is informed, and sometimes, I think he comes to SF [Stormfront] to steal show idea's" 
 
 Avlon: 
 
 Carolina Patriot poster takes a down-home view: "Every now and again when an infomercial takes the place of hunting or fishing, I'll turn over to Glenn Beck if he's on and watch his show. Sometimes it is amusing, sometimes it is informed, and sometimes, I think he comes to [Stormfront] to steal show ideas." 
 
 Zaitchk's final two sentences: 
 
 "By no means do I think [Beck] is aware of the racial issue, and for the moment that is ok," wrote Stormfront member QHelios. "He is stirring the pot, and I thank him for that." 
 
 Avlon's final two sentences: 
 
 QHelios gives Beck the benefit of the doubt: "By no means do I think [Beck] is aware of the racial issue, and for the moment that is ok … He is stirring the pot, and I thank him for that." 
 
 Zaitchik included links to all of the Stormfront.org comments in his story last November. It's fairly obvious that Avlon just ripped off those comments from Zaitchik and then failed to cite him. Which is, if not plagiarism, at least taking someone's research with no credit. 
 
 Zaitchik also wrote a three-part series on Beck for Salon last September. Avlon cites parts two and three of that series in his endnotes, indicating he pulled from them at specific points in his chapter. He never cites part one of Zaitchik's series, although at least one of Avlon's paragraphs on Beck's upbringing in Washington hews closely to a paragraph of Zaitchik's. This could, however, be a case of two men producing similar work with similar research. 
 
 John Avlon, TDB's senior political columnist, is clearly not in the same league as Gerald Posner, who quit The Daily Beast in February after being caught in a spectacular number of plagiarism violations. But no one should see their work taken without credit (as we are constantly reminded). Zaitchik declined to comment to us; We've emailed The Daily Beast and Avlon, and we'll update if they respond. 
 
 UPDATE: Daily Beast PR man Andrew Kirk sent this letter in response to our post. ||||| Salon 
 
 I was reluctant to wade into the problems with plagiarism at the Daily Beast the first time around, when correspondent Gerald Posner was forced to resign for borrowing material from other publications for many of his stories on the site. One of the stories he plagiarized that was never publicized happened to be a 2007 Salon story by freelancer Shaun McCanna, on heroin use by American military personnel in Afghanistan. 
 
 It took three weeks after McCanna confronted TDB with evidence of plagiarism, but finally the site added an editor's note crediting Salon. 
 
 When Gawker reported today that TDB again lifted from Salon -- this time "Wingnuts" author and "special correspondent" John Avlon borrowed liberally, without appropriate credit, from an Alexander Zaitchik story, "Glenn Beck's White Nationalist Fans" -- I was bothered, but I quickly reached out to editor Tina Brown, a longtime Salon friend, asking for an explanation, rather than responding publicly. I haven't gotten one yet; instead TDB's public relations person Andrew Kirk, in a rather shrieking statement, has asked Gawker to retract Hamilton Nolan's piece about Avlon's borrowings from Salon. 
 
 Nolan has nothing to retract. It's clear Avlon borrowed from Zaitchik beyond the bounds of fairness. In particular, he used four of the same quotes from the white nationalist Web site Stormfront.org, without credit. How do we know he got the quotes from Zaitchik? First of all, TDB already corrected an error in the piece; Avlon referred to the site as Stormfront.com, which hardly shows a great familiarity with the white nationalist Web world. Second, he quotes from obscure, long-ago threads that are hard to find; I worked with Zaitchik personally on the story to nail down the quotes and to link correctly. Even from long rambling threads, Avlon quotes what Zaitchik used verbatim, down to abbreviating and editing the same way. And he uses the quotes in the same order Zaitchik did, even though they're all from different threads. 
 
 Finally, the two articles end with the same Stormfront quote as their kicker. 
 
 Worst of all, Zaitchik went to TDB himself when he discovered Avlon's liftings weeks ago, and nobody at the publication ever got back to him. 
 
 It's bad enough to borrow this way from another publication; it's worse to accuse a third publication of getting its facts wrong and demand a retraction. TDB is a fairly young publication, and the breakneck speed of online journalism can cause all of us to run stories we later regret. But combined with the Posner case, and the failure to notify Salon that they'd uncovered an example of Posner plagiarizing one of our writers (let alone to apologize), I have to say, TDB has a problem that blaming Gawker isn't going to make go away. It's time for a correction and an apology to Alexander Zaitchik, who has his own well-researched book on Glenn Beck coming out in May.
– Another Daily Beast columnist has been accused of uncredited borrowing. This time, it’s senior political columnist John Avalon, who, in his new Beast-published book Wingnuts, lifts quotes from Salon columnist Alexander Zaitchik’s reporting on Glenn Beck. Hamilton Nolan of Gawker lays out all the instances here. Basically, Avalon didn’t swipe any of Zaitchik’s own prose, but he just happened to find the exact same obscure quotes on the Stormfront.org forums, edit them the same way, and use them in the same order. Asked for comment, the Beast’s PR guy fired back a scathing e-mail, calling Hamilton’s post “highly defamatory” and demanding a retraction. “Nolan has nothing to retract,” counters Joan Walsh of Salon; Avalon obviously borrowed “beyond the bounds of fairness.” She reveals that Zaitchik himself noticed the swipes weeks ago, and privately contacted the Beast, but didn’t get any response. Taken together with the Gerald Posner case, “TDB has a problem that blaming Gawker isn't going to make go away.”