JONATHAN CHAIT JULY 22, 2010
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Kevin Williamson says that Andrew Breitbart has higher standards than the mainstream media:
Dan Rather, to this day, has not owned up to basing a story on forged documents. So far as I can tell, Andrew Breitbart is still operating at a higher editorial standard than the producers of Dateline or the CBS Evening News did on those occasions. I do not see a lot of opportunity for self-congratulation in this episode for the mainstream media. Breitbart's 37-word correction is 37 words more than Dan Rather has offered in honest assessment of his story's shortcomings. May the mainstream media aspire to live up to Breitbart's standards.
Right. "Correction" seems like a pretty significant overstatement of what Breitbart wrote:
Breitbart posted the misleading clip Monday. But a full video of the speech was not posted online until Tuesday night. In the meantime, Sherrod was fired from her job and accused of being a racist by the NAACP.
But rather than acknowledge any sort of mistake in posting the abbreviated video, Breitbart has updated the post — which still comes under the headline “Video Proof: The NAACP Awards Racism” — with only a clarification on when she held her government position.
“While Ms. Sherrod made the remarks captured in the first video featured in this post while she held a federally appointed position, the story she tells refers to actions she took before she held that federal position,” the correction reads.
Meanwhile, Dan Rather lost his entire career because he was duped in one story. So let's recap: Breitbart makes a malicious error, very similar to a previous malicious error he committed, and lashes out at his critics rather than confess his mistake. CBS makes a sloppy but innocent mistake and fires the responsible parties. This contrast shows that Breitbart holds himself to higher standards?
9 comments
Um, not to put too fine a point on, but what exactly is a "malicious error"? An error that has malicious consequences? An error that has malicious intent? Just askin'.
- icarusr
July 22, 2010 at 2:05pm
In the entire fiasco with Rather 1) a career and man was destroyed for a dumb move 2) the Bushies never denied the accusation The opposite is true here. BIG difference in outcomes. A real journalist pulls a dumb stunt, he suffers for it, his career is over. Right-wingers do the same, they're congratulated and defended. Talk about a morally and intellectually bankrupt group of people. Ms. Cottle's follow-up piece in this blog does a better job of commenting on this than I could.
- tnmats
July 22, 2010 at 2:18pm
Limbaugh, Beck, Breitbart. Things in common: history of drug and alcohol abuse = delusions
- NR027810
July 22, 2010 at 2:27pm
The higher standards referred to exist only in the minds of the epistemically-closed right. Meanwhile, over at The Daily Palin, Andrew has yet another post on Journolist. Is the man mad? This pseudo-scandal merited maybe two posts, and not overheated ones of the nature that he made. But he is still posting away. Pit bull Andrew is on the non-story. What is hilarious is that he repeatedly has expressed his admiration for the cool that Barack Obama has. When was the last time that Andrew was cool under fire? In his last lifetime? Never?
- liberal reformer
July 22, 2010 at 2:31pm
I watched Breitbart on CNN (interview with John King) and was shocked by his venom. Also, though Shirley Sherrod was fired, her life possibly ruined by this scurrilous attack Breitbart excused it by claiming that she wasn't the target but rather the NAACP as if that were better. Rather than dealing with overtly racist elements within the Tea Party movement Brietbart chose this character assassination then claimed Sherrod wasn't the target. Limbaugh then piles on by claiming that we'll be seeing black bureaucrats administering medical care with less concern for whites. This whole thing is appalling.
- Sophia
July 22, 2010 at 2:32pm
lib ref, you're surprised that someone admires a quality that they don't themselves possess? I don't know about anyone else, but that's a big rationale for my marriage.
- miceelf
July 22, 2010 at 3:10pm
So Sophia, in that interview, did King try to get some answers from Breibart, that is, actually pose some stiff questions and not let him get away with faux answers? Or was it the typical spineless questions?
- tnmats
July 22, 2010 at 4:22pm
They are obsessed with Dan Rather and that story. They have, like, one example of the supposed liberal cabal that is the mainstream media -- which was a stupid mistake in a story that was probably true. They keep going back to it. It's a fucking holiday on their calendars. And today we commemorate that glorious victory against the Communist Broadcasting System when the elitist "Tiffany" network was forced to fire the producer of an anti-Bush story because she apparently didn't know what a typewriter-produced document looks like. Meanwhile, Fox is deliberately full of shit on a daily basis, never mind pricks like Limbaugh or raving lunatics like Breitbart.
- JakeH
July 22, 2010 at 6:22pm
No, I am not at all surprised at a person admiring the qualities of another. I do it myself. It is just the extreme dichotomy involved here. Andrew throws conniptions on a daily basis and Barack Obama does so, well, about never.
- liberal reformer
July 22, 2010 at 8:58pm