The lesson of Shirley Sherrod’s disgraceful treatment by right-wing and not-so-right-wing media (followed by her equally squalid dismissal by an administration that took that media at face value) boils down to a single question: When will journalists see Andrew Breitbart as the serial promoter of journalistic frauds that he is, rather than as a legitimate source for story ideas?
FAIR readers will remember Breitbart’s dissemination of videos that purported to show ACORN employees advising a “prostitute” and her “pimp” — conservative activists Hannah Giles and James O’Keefe–on how to avoid paying taxes. The videos have since been heavily debunked. As FAIR has noted before (Action Alert, 3/11/10), O’Keefe didn’t “pose” as a pimp–he didn’t wear his ridiculous “pimp” outfit inside ACORN offices, and in almost every case pretended to be a concerned boyfriend trying to get his girlfriend away from an abusive pimp. He also did not receive advice on how to “cheat” on his taxes. Additionally, ACORN has been cleared of wrongdoing by three separate independent investigations.
Breitbart’s latest fraud–posting a selectively edited video in which Sherrod appears to make some overtly racist statements to a local NAACP chapter–led to the forced resignation of the USDA employee.
That video went viral in the right-wing media and beyond, as accusations of Sherrod’s racism were tossed about, along with the larger implication that the Obama administration harbored racists. As Sherrod tells it, she soon received three separate calls telling her the White House was asking for her resignation, with one official telling her she would be on Glenn Beck that night.
The Sherrod story didn’t actually make it on Beck that night, but it was all over Fox News. Bill O’Reilly (7/19/10) called Sherrod’s comments “unacceptable” and called for her to “resign immediately.” Sean Hannity (7/19/10) called the comments “racist” and praised Breitbart for exposing them.
The next day, as details of Sherrod’s entire speech emerged, it became clear she was describing her experience of struggling with and surmounting bias. Her point was an anti-racist one. Even the white farmer who was allegedly wronged by Sherrod appeared on CNN (7/20/10), along with his wife, to defend her.
Predictably, many right-wing media personalities stood by Breitbart even as the truth was being revealed. Rush Limbaugh (7/20/10) said Breitbart did “great work getting this video of Ms. Sherrod at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and her supposed racism.” Hannity (7/20/10) invited Breitbart on his show to defend himself. Meanwhile, O’Reilly (7/20/10) stood by his demand for Sherrod’s resignation, and even chastised the rest of the media for not reporting on Breitbart’s heavily edited video–adding it to a long list of invented right-wing controversies he believes have been ignored by the mainstream media, including the aforementioned ACORN hoax, as well as the New Black Panther voter intimidation “scandal” and the Van Jones resignation–both of which were wildly overblown (Counterspin, 7/16/10; Extra!, 11/09), but were, contrary to O’Reilly’s protestations, picked up by more centrist media after amplification in the right-wing echo chamber.
The same is true of the Sherrod resignation, which some outlets continued to frame as a he said/she said controversy even after the truth began to emerge–outlets such as AP (7/20/10), which also took the opportunity to laud Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com as the site that “gained fame after releasing video of workers for the community organizing group ACORN counseling actors posing as a pimp and prostitute.”
In the Washington Post (7/21/10), Karen Tumulty and Krissah Thompson were still lending credence to Breitbart’s video even after the entire speech was released, reporting on the episode as a controversy between Sherrod and “her critics” as well as one that reinforces the right-wing narrative “that the administration of the first African-American to occupy the White House practices its own brand of racism.”
It isn’t surprising that right-wing media continue to exalt Breitbart, but when will the rest of the corporate media learn that he can’t be trusted?
“It isn’t surprising that right-wing media continue to exalt Breitbart, but when will the rest of the corporate media learn that he can’t be trusted?”
Zachary, do you think it’s a matter of “learning”, or a matter of knowing? The corpress knows full well who Breitbart is, and will continue to allow him and his ilk to spread their agitprop on their dime, don’t you think?
Reality has never been of any concern to these bastards. The actual past and present are distorted and hidden from us in order to ensure a future of injustice and plunder.
We’re talking about matters of degree, not kind, wouldn’t you say?
I’d say they’ve learned their lessons well.
I havent been this pissed off since the charade of Pre-Iraq War coverage. I’ll try to keep the anger out of the comments though.
The HORRIBLE Howard Kurtz column this morning is more pro-entertainment news positioning from his particularly ineffectual and irrational form of ‘media criticism’. See how he blames Obama, and defends Fox as only covering the story ‘after she was fired’, AS IF Fox would have let the story go silent if she WASNT fired. The News Corp pattern is transparent and worn out — Acorn, Open Borders, Black Panthers, Sleeping School Guards, Celebrity Outrage.
The only thing we can do is convince people that News Corp produces Media, not News. Also, I think we need to give up the idea of Real Time news, as though this was ever really possible, despite how seductive it sounds.
FOX can only be perceived as a separatist promoter, bent on hurting to death the Obama administration, because the President is Black, and FOX cannot farthom the fact that Blacks are as intelligent and forward as anybody else, and certainly superior to the majority of pro-whites (Anglo) and illiterate who listen to FOX NEWS, and refuse to admit , because of religion, that evolution exists. I bet the people would jump out of their breeches if they were told they all came from the black race, and that Jesus’s great great grand mother was black, and himself was a Jew. But Jesus preached compassion, and ‘treat your neighborg like you would like to be treated yourself’ Would the Klansmen like to be treated like they treated the ‘negroes’ — chained behind a truck and bounced on the dirt road till death, like happened not so long ago in Florida??????? first time I said this to YOU1
The conservative-hate- media is all out to destroy the Dems & our President!They are all over the radio/TV with their ideological propaganda because they have powerful people w/money to promote all of this pollution…and they all do a brilliant job to convince the “low information”viewers to believe every thing they hear is the absolute “truth”..LOL! “The Fox “entertainment show”is just that! It’s not news any more..they just twist the “news/opinions” to suit their agenda…remember,”nothing last forever,everything has a phase..some phases are just longer then others”..THE FOX & Andrew Brietbart are nothing but a PHASE!
Shirley Sherrod is such a kind person. I hope people can watch the entire video to see.
When are the Dems going to get some balls and stop being the “party of Pussies”???? We need to get serious about fighting all the outlandish lies and fear mongering. Thank goodness for FAIR working to get the TRUTH out.
The right wing Oligarchy are inadvertently promoting civil war and the destruction of the “goose that lays their egg.” They are so dumb and short sighted. My only consolation is that they, because of their wealth and power, have a lot more to loose than the rest of us”
ralph ellison would have been hard pressed to invent a character like “bart breitbart” for the “invisable man.” back in the day,old timers knew that j edgar hoover had his corner of the civil rights movement-but hell,breitbart appears to be the running the naacp.not to mention the usda.
is “reverse racism” the tar baby of american journalism-? the kryptonite of its inferential skills? none of this is really new-but it shouldn’t be this damned easy-when you get “snookered” every few days,maybe its because you are “playing” for the “washington generals” against the mighty trotters-the latter couldn’t be invincible without the former.
ken kurtz is just precious-wopo didn’t go with the sherrod story till after she was fired-nonsequiter ?,autosuggestion.? vaudeville for “entertainers” who lack nuance,let alone timing.
Newspeak doesn’t get any louder than the current MSM news speak.
That creationists like Breitbart, Limbaugh and Beck are taken seriously as legitimate voices of America tells me that the US republic is in serious trouble. I grow more pessimistic daily.
Breitbart and Fox News are the Joseph Goebbels of the U.S. and the real issue isn’t how the Dem’s get suckered by the fictional reports they put out, though that is distressing, but the failure to address head on the fact that one of the nation’s leading “news” organizations is engaged in a conscious and concerted propaganda effort to create false news on a regular basis to mislead the public. That’s what the discussion should be. Where’s the call for Fox never again to use any information supplied by Breitbart? Where’s the demand that Fox and Breitbart apologize for what they’ve done? They must be de-legitimatized by raising ad infinatum – just like Republicans do – the ongoing heinous and destructive activities they’ve been engaged in.
who can forget the bush family member/fox news employee who “called ” florida for the texas governor-convincing gore to concede the 2000 presidential election,thereby framing the issues around what became a highly disputed election-creating a climate in which the ludicrous,and incoherent “bush v gore” decision WHICH STOPPED THE COUNTING OF VOTES IN A USA PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION -WAS ACTUALLY PALLATABLE TO A FREE PEOPLE? the “fox” has been running the journalistic chicken coop for quite some time now-
Right wing doesn’t have a mkt on this type of blogging..
Letter I recently sent to another blogs admin
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/joan_walsh/politics/2010/08/06/glenn_beck_planet_of_the_apes/index.html
This clip was taken out of context and is very similar to the Shirley
Sherrod incident… I’m good with your writers opposing view points but
when you pull a Bart Breitbart, I find that disturbing and kinda lazy
of the author.
This has happened again in your publication with the following
http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/08/04/nation_of_birthers/index.html
This article insinuates that 41% of ALL republicans think Obama was not
born in the US… the actual number of Republicans that answered the
poll was 200 or so… not exactly a scientific poll. And to be fair
they were probably trolls as they were answering to a CNN poll…
I find this kind of journalism troubling.. I don’t like it when people
like Bart Breitbart do it so why would you condone such practices on
your website.
People just need to find out for themselves and stop falling prey to this kind of thing…