Hello:
My name is George, and I work with “All Things
Considered.” Thanks for your letter.
There is no standard convention by which web resources are
attributed. Most of the time if something is pulled from a web site we just
name the web site, such as “in videos appearing on YouTube…”
or another web site.
When things are attributed to an organization that is not
solely web based, like a newspaper or a news wire company, we’ll name the
company unless the information only appears on that respective website, then we’ll
specify the web site.
In many cases it’s hard to know who specifically to
attribute something to. On You Tube and other similar sites the item posted by
a particular user might not have been created by that user. There was a story
we did a while back about a guitar virtuoso in South Korea. From the credits it
appeared that his online handle was “Funtwo,” but the video of his
performance was posted by hundreds of different users. We referenced “Funtwo”
with the caveat that it might not be his real username.
There is also a bit of nuance to crediting sources. We will
mention a news organization when we follow a story they’ve reported, and
we’ll name sources of quotes and information, but it’s not always
necessary to credit small bits of audio, much the same way it’s not
necessary to credit a short quote in an academic paper or book report. (Save
for the bibliography, which radio news doesn’t have.)
In short, credit should be given where credit is due, and
when it can be verified. I did not produce the story featuring video from your
channel, but we try to make sure proper attribution is given. We can’t
always guarantee everyone will be satisfied, but we do work to make sure we get
things right.
George