Joshua Green
Awhile back, particularly during the Clinton administration, the media would flagellate itself every so often for rushing, lemming-like, to cover some story or other that was being touted on the Drudge Report, and then, after a period of reflection, deciding that it shouldn't be. There was usually a Howard Kurtz column to demarcate such an episode. But the recidivism rate was high. Invariably, the media would chase the next Drudge rumor, and the whole cycle would repeat.
That doesn't seem to happen anymore, at least not with Drudge. But it does happen, and more powerfully than ever, with Andrew Breitbart, who has inherited Barnum's instinct for what will cause a circus and the certainty that suckers are still being born every minute. One difference is that Drudge usually focused on sex scandals and tawdry personal humiliations, which, in the end, is hardly worth getting worked up about. Yes, yes, shame on reporters for taking the bait. But c'mon.
Breitbart focuses on race. Today's episode with Shirley Sherrod, who was forced to resign from the Agriculture Department on the basis of a doctored and intentionally misleading videotape (see below), is an especially ugly case in point, calculated to stir the very worst racial resentments. This time the political world--the NAACP, the Agriculture Secretary--moved as quickly as the media world to unthinking response, and I suspect it happened precisely
because race was involved. I don't doubt
that the administration's understandable desire to avoid racial issues played a big part in how this turned out.
But what's galling to me--gut-wrenching, really, like watching old news footage of blacks being beaten and clubbed at lunch counters--is that Breitbart obviously understood the powerful effect his tape would have, posted it anyway, and then assumed the role of ringmaster, expertly
conducting the media circus, fanning the flames. It's hardly the first time. But the moral ugliness of what's just happened is glaring, and it's hard for me to see how the media can justify continuing to treat Breitbart as simply a roguish provocateur. He's something much darker.
From a
Daily Kos diary:
<...>
I am flipping though
Morning Joe,
CNN Morning and
Fox and Freaks and apparently the
hugestory here is that President Obama failed, NAACP failed and the USDA failed.
But what about Andrew Breitbart. And Fox News. WTF?!
This man deliberately put out an edited tape, falsely labeling this woman as a racist and causing her to lose her job. And the Media has nothing to say about that? Fox News jumped the gun and put the tape on loop ALL DAY LONG. And now with egg on its face---the media has turned the story around and made it about the failure about the Obama administration.
Keith has
stated (via Twitter):
Look at the full tape - Breitbart has just cut the RW media's throat
Well, unless someone actually calls out Breitbart and Fox Noise...I HIGHLY doubt this is the death of the RW media.
<...>
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