David W. Richards

David Weston Richards is the CEO and Editorial Director of Australian technology publisher 4SquareMedia. He publishes Smarthouse, SmartHouse News, SmartOffice,[1] and ChannelNews.

Previous career moves have involved creating a PR company, Weston Communications,[2] as well as a publishing company DWR Communications, later sold to Penton Media.[3]

Controversies

In one of Richards' stories that received worldwide attention, he claimed that just months before the release of Windows Vista, Microsoft was having to rewrite "up to 60% of Vista's code". The original article has since been taken down by Richards. Blogger Robert Scoble called for Richards' sacking over the piece.[4] Richards later admitted in an email published by MediaConnect proprietor Phil Sim that he had based the whole story on some comments by an Acer Australia Marketing Manager, Raymond Vardenega.[3] Richards commented to Sim that "I don’t need a bunch of upstart bloggers to tell me how to write a story or how to stand a story up."[5]

Richards has been accused of plagiarism of other journalists' stories from a variety of sources ranging from newspapers and magazines to wire services and blogs. Journalist Jason Unger notes several instances where that Richards plagiarised Unger's work appearing in CE Pro magazine along with other article from CE Pro, TWICE (This Week In Consumer Electronics), Big Picture Big Sound, Residential Systems, Stereophile, BusinessWeek and even The Hollywood Reporter.[6]

Richards was profiled by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Media Watch (TV program) on 3 March 2008, under accusation of plagiarism. The video is available for viewing on the ABC website.[7] At first, Richards claimed that publishers had given his company permission to use the plagiarized content, but the ABC journalists discovered this was not true. "He has no current authorization from us to use any of our materials", one of the publishers stated.[8] Several hours before the program went to air, Richards published a story claiming his website had been hacked, and the hacker had been posting stories under his name using plagiarized content in order to discredit him.[9]

However, numerous content owners stated to Media Watch they had contacted Richards over the years to complain about unauthorized reproduction of their content with false information published on 4SquareMedia website, leading ABC Media Watch to award him the "Phantom of the Internet" trophy, a new award devised by the ABC for the most inventive excuse for plagiarism.[7]

Richards was profiled by Media Watch again on 5 July 2010,[1] citing reports that IDG was demanding 4Square Media take down content they believed was copied from the PC World website.

Despite the controversies, numerous plagiarism accusations have continued to surface against sites associated with Richards and 4Square Media at least as recently as 2013.[10]

Richards was again profiled by Media Watch on 13 February 2017,[11] for plagiarising more than 16 articles in January 2017 from publications including Dow Jones, Forbes, BBC and Quartz.[11]

Richards was at it again in September 2017, lifting a story from The Australian about Internet Australia. At least he published a follow up totally debunking his yarn and the original. A pity about the typos though. [12]

References

  1. 1 2 "Media Watch: The Phantom Of The Internet Returns (July 5, 2010)". Media Watch (TV program). Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 5 July 2010. Retrieved 2010-07-05.
  2. ↑ "Why the likes of Edelman don't get tech PR". SmartOffice. David Richards. 20 March 2006. Retrieved 2008-03-07.
  3. 1 2 "Biggest. Microsoft. Stuff-up. Ever? (And Who the heck is David Richards?)". Squash. Phil Sim. 26 March 2006. Retrieved 2008-03-07.
  4. ↑ "Where the heck is Scoble?". Scobleizer. Robert Scoble. 24 March 2006. Archived from the original on 27 March 2008. Retrieved 2008-03-07.
  5. ↑ "Richards Responds". Squash. Phil Sim. 26 March 2006. Retrieved 2008-03-07.
  6. ↑ "David Richards, Technology Journalism's Biggest Plagiarist". Jason Unger. Jason Unger. 19 December 2007. Retrieved 2008-09-28.
  7. 1 2 "Media Watch: Phantom of the Internet (3/3/08)". Media Watch (TV program). Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 3 March 2006. Retrieved 2008-03-07.
  8. ↑ "Media Watch: Phantom of the Internet (3/3/08)". Media Watch (TV program). Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 3 March 2006. Retrieved 2009-01-19.
  9. ↑ "SmartHouse Hacked". SmartHouse. 4SquareMedia. 3 March 2006. Retrieved 2008-03-07.
  10. ↑ http://techgeek.com.au/2013/07/30/phantom-strikes-back-tech-site-smarthouse-caught-plagiarising-again/
  11. 1 2 "Media Watch: Phantom of the Internet Rebooted (13/02/2017)". Media Watch (TV program). Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 13 February 2017. Retrieved 2017-03-14.
  12. ↑ https://www.channelnews.com.au/former-internet-australia-boss-fights-back/
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