Huffington Post senior editor accused of taking material from Media Matters

A Huffington Post senior editor has been accused of lifting material from Media Matters, a far-left pro-Hillary Clinton group.

“No question about it: I should have included a link to the Media Matters story from the get-go. The writing in the story is all mine, but I found several tweets from the Media Matters story and initially neglected to credit them,” the Huffington Post’s Gabriel Arana told the Washington Examiner’s media desk.

In an article published Sunday night, titled “Right-Wing Media Lash Out In Response To Hillary Clinton’s Campaign For Presidency,” Media Matters highlighted Clinton criticism from conservative media figures, including Red State’s Erick Erickson, National Review’s Kevin Williamson and the Washington Free Beacon’s Bill McMorris.

On Monday morning, the Huffington Post published an article by Arana titled “Hillary Clinton Announcement Roils Right-Wing Media.” The Huffington Post article presented many of the exact same criticisms that appear in the Media Matters post.

Arana added a video of conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt explaining that Clinton is the Democratic Party’s “Weekend at Bernie’s” moment and omitted a few quotes — from Townhall’s Katie Pavlich, Infowar’s Paul Joseph Watson and blogger Jim Hoft — that appear in the Media Matters article.

McMorris flagged the similarities between the two posts early Monday afternoon, accusing Arana of having “ripped off” Media Matters’ material.

Arana responded at first by tweeting at McMorris, “lemme take off my earrings, somebody hold my purse!”

Later, after Talking Points Memo’s Brendan James also noted the similarities between Arana’s article and the Sunday’s Media Matters reporter, the Huffington Post reporter’s tone changed.

“[I] looked for more, found some and excluded others,” Arana explained on Twitter.

The Huffington Post senior editor later amended his article to include a “hat tip” to Media Matters.

“Updated, [thanks] for pointing out,” Arana said on Twitter. “Hoping this is the worst ethical breech of my career.”

McMorris appeared unimpressed, saying on social media that Arana only cited his source material because James, a journalist from a liberal site, had “caught it.”

“Never apologized [before because] he knew his editors would never know,” McMorris said.

Arana told the Examiner, “I added a credit this afternoon but should have done so even sooner. My apologies.”

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This post has been updated to include comment from Arana.