Why Does Anyone Take Andrew Breitbart Seriously?

[mike r]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-dreier/why-does-anyone-take-andr_b_657964.html

Why Does Anyone Take Andrew Breitbart Seriously?
By Peter Dreier and Christopher Martin

Andrew Breitbart has a job to do and he does it well. Breitbart's job is to lie and distort the truth in order to advance a right-wing agenda, embarrass liberals, and undermine the Obama administration. Breitbart is not a journalist, researcher, or pundit. He is a propagandist. His websites are propaganda vehicles for building a political movement. Unlike Fox News, he doesn't even pretend to be "fair and balanced." What much of America learned this week is that Andrew Breitbart is unfair and unbalanced. What's distressing is not that Breitbart does his job, but that the mainstream media and mainstream politicians, including the Obama Administration, take him seriously...

Now Breitbart is back in the news as a result of another manufactured controversy, this one regarding Shirley Sherrod. He's gotten even more media attention for this episode than he did for his ACORN shenanigans. But the current firestorm has many of the same elements as the phony ACORN scandal that he cooked up last year. Unlike the manufactured ACORN controversy, Breitbart's deception in the Sherrod "scandal" was uncovered quickly. A few media outlets, including CNN, dug a bit deeper, interviewed Sherrod, talked to the white farmers that Sherrod helped, reviewed the entire videotape of her speech to the NAACP in Georgia, and disclosed what should have been apparent from the beginning...

There are thousands of right-wing websites and bloggers, but so far Breitbart is the most successful, having mastered - indeed, having helped create - the new rules of political combat made possible by the internet and cable TV... The Philadelphia Daily News called him a "rising conservative media figure." The Washington Post called him a "conservative activist" and an "internet entrepreneur." NPR described him as a "conservative online news entrepreneur." The New York Times and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution called him a "blogger," while Newsday and the New Republic called him a "conservative blogger." The Las Vegas Review-Journal called him an "online muckraker and journalist." The San Francisco Chronicle and ABC's "Good Morning America" labeled him a "publisher." Regardless of what he's called, the Sherrod story is a good example of Breitbart's skill at what academics call "agenda-setting" and "framing". A week ago, hardly anyone had ever heard of Shirley Sherrod. Now, she's practically a household name. Almost every major news outlet has published or broadcast something about this story. That's the art of agenda-setting... By now it is clear what Breitbart is selling. But the real question is why the mainstream media and Democratic politicians bought it. Breitbart is a con artist, but con artists succeed if consumers don't know they are being conned - or don't care. Given Breitbart's track record, why does anyone - reporters and editors, foundations, advocacy groups, and elected officials - take him seriously?...

Clearly the Obama administration over-reacted, fearful, as a high-level official put it, of having the Sherrod story show up on Glenn Beck's Fox News show. Why they are so intimidated by Beck and his ilk is a mystery. Their followers, and those who identify with the Tea Party, represent no more than 15 percent of all voters. Very few of Beck's (or Limbaugh's) devotees would even consider voting for a Democrat. After all, they think Obama is a Marxist, a Muslim, and a foreigner. This is not a constituency that Obama and the Democrats are going to win over by appearing to be bipartisan or middle-of-the-road. And if Obama and his inner circle are worried that Breitbart's and Beck's poison will spread from their base among right-wing zealots and start influencing "independent" and "swing" voters -- and thus help sway close elections toward Republican candidates -- then the best way to prevent that from happening is to fight back, and challenge their lies and distortions, not run away and hide, or capitulate, as they did by firing Van Jones, abandoning ACORN, and firing Shirley Sherrod...

[Triana]

1. He creates and dishes dirt on people and helps the media get great ratings

which translates into lots of corprat $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$. So he ruins lives and careers doing it? Who cares? Certainly not the media! They're making a fortune from it! This is what they do.

Fox probably pays him for the service, in fact. And they're probably not the only ones paying him for it.

[corpseratemedia]

2. i cant wait for him to be sued

and lose


what he did should have completely discredited him

but if the media still pushes mini-goebbels as a legitimate source, my only hope is that more people (who haven't before) see the msm for what it really is

[66 dmhlt]

4. Me, too!

[grahamhgreen]

3. Because the admin did on Sherrod, and the Dems did with Acorn.

[glinda]

5. He gives his followers a "justified reason" to spew hate and gives others,

stupid enough to "react", a sign saying "stupid" on their forehead. He is a direct instrument of the Republican Party. Plain and simple.

[cilla4progress]

6. Honestly, why does ANYONE take ANY of this shit seriously?

Sarah Palin
John Boehner
Tea Party
Glen Beck
Michelle Bachmann
Republican party circa 2010

To you and me it is SO clear that these people are crazed, semi-literate, shallow, selfish, stupid, and most of all, immature - stuck in a junior high school system of values and opinions. I don't know why the media, and thereby the culture, gives any of them anything more than shit on a stick, except for the 24 hour news cycle. What a waste of time and energy. Good bye world, good bye first nation status, hello .... Rwanda?

[Doctor_J]

7. A lot of DUers believe PIECES of right-wing propaganda

Many believed Breitbart. A whole lot of them believe the NRA/Big Media pro-gun BS. Another group believe all of Big Media's anti-union lies. Still another group believe everything Big Media tells them about Hugo Chavez.

Frankly, I don't get it. Except for about a couple dozen individuals, every single person on TV "News", print media, and talk radio is a lying right-wing propagandist. Yet still people who call themselves Dems believe it, repeat it, and are addicted to it. When you find out why, there's probably a PhD in psychopathology waiting for you.