Team Breitbart: We’re going to smack Politico across the face and expose Buzzfeed:
Breitbart’s Ben Shapiro took a more bellicose tone, declaring that Breitbart News writers would challenge not only the existing mainstream media for their biased coverage, but also the newer online outlets.
“You’ll notice that on our video site we don’t tend to care so much about MSNBC, because MSNBC is pretty open about the fact that they are left wing,” he said. “We do however care about Politico and we will smack Politico across the face as often as humanly possible.”
Shapiro added that other websites like Buzzfeed “hide behind this patina of entertainment in order to promote a left-wing agenda.”
Needless to say, the use of the term “smack” is getting attention, but that’s a distraction.
The bigger point is the point I’ve made here repeatedly over the years about Politico, and more recently Buzzfeed, which is a lack of transparency.
Politico has the patina of neutrality, but relentlessly goes after Republicans with a gusto and joy not seen when it comes to Democrats in general and Obama in particular. There’s enough “news” at Politico for it to hold itself out as a news organization, but there is no mistaking how it leans. I’d have more respect for Politico, like all mainstream outlets, if they were open about their political preferences.
Same thing goes for Buzzfeed. I’ve praised the job Buzzfeed does at blending the culture and politics. But again, I wish it were more transparent.
Here at Legal Insurrection, we’re transparent. We tell you who we support or oppose, and you can judge our content in that context.
That sometimes works against us — as in the case of Elizabeth Warren where her campaign and supporters tried to dismiss the evidence we presented against her because we were open about our politics. Even the Wikipedia editors cleansing Warren’s Cherokee controversy entry have accused us of being “partisan” as a means of disregarding facts we have documented about Warren.
We are partisan. So are Politico and Buzzfeed. And ABC, NBC, CBS and other “news” organizations.
The difference is that we are upfront about it.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
Unfortunately, honesty and forthrightness are not valued traits on the left.
“The difference is that we are upfront about it.”
Isn’t the scenario even worse? Often many of the ‘guilty’ outlets produce random but infrequent negative stories and criticisms of the left. More often than not, they are in cases that almost cannot be ignored – such as when a House ethic’s committee rebukes the action of a Democrat, or the actions are truly egregious to liberal sensibilities (who commands drone strikes). These become the glaring examples of their version of ‘balance’, and are trotted out for every criticism of their lack of transparency.
Intentional deceit, especially if and when there is a driving motive (persuasion), is the worst form of illegitimacy in journalism. And for me, the fact that LI’s (and Breitbart’s, and The Daily Caller’s, etc.) political position is the first descriptor used in countering information you provided about a progressive, suggests how important those with that ideology see the need to keep up the charade. They know well that removal of their artificial ‘veil’ of objectivity corrodes their impact to those who are not as sympathetic to progressive views.
However, the fact that page views for the above mentioned non-liberal sites have steadily grown, and that the sites have grown in number, added to the fact that the Politico’s are being continually called out, surely makes their ‘veil’ hard to keep in place. For more and more people, the veil comes down by becoming ‘informed.’
No mention of Huffington Post but perhaps they pass the transparency test and are well known as a liberal front passing itself off as a “news” site.
I turn over the canoes of any liberal quoting HuffPo, but then I also do the same to those quoting from MMFA, Mother Jones, and the like.
What tickles me is Liberals going after articles linked on the Drudge Report in view of the fact that Drudge author articles.
Exactly so.
It USED to be that newspapers limited commentary to the EDITORIAL OPINION page. Not so anymore. In almost every news article these days, you will find commentary mixed in with the news. Sometimes it’s a matter of how a question is framed, other times it’s what are the “implications” of the news story, sometimes it’s even self-reporting, i.e. “Has the media gone too far?” etc….
I have no problem with a biased news source, as long as I’m aware of what that bias is. I wish everyone was required to take a critical thinking course in school, in order to discern between logical argument and logical fallacy in any debate on a topic.
Critical thinking is becoming a lost art in our public education, and we will suffer greatly for it down the road.
It doesn’t take most people very long to see the political slant at POLITICO. I’d forgotten they anyone thought they were neutral.
I believe the biggest offenders at lacking transparency, and the most damaging, are the major wires services, AP and Reuters. Many of their stories are not only slanted, they are viewed as legitimate and the voice of authority, and because of that, their stories are reported (repeated) in numerous media venues throughout the world. When you have most major television networks and these two behemoth news distribution systems working together, it is a difficult force to overcome. The Right is not only considered evil in the United States, but throughout most of the world.
I suspect the majority of those writing for sites like Politico and Buzzfeed have never had a course in journalistic ethics.
Half a lifetime ago I found myself working for a local radio station as a secretary. They were perennially short-handed and I soon found myself writing ad copy (ugh) and covering news (cool). Having never taken that ethics course, my news coverage was inevitably slanted toward my own opinions and I didn’t realize it for months.
Even when I did understand what I was doing, my reaction was not one of embarrassment or shame but pride that I was promoting what I thought was the right agenda…and at that time the “right” agenda for me was left.
That journalistic ethics course isn’t a guarantee of objective news coverage…see the alphabets and even Fox. But without it, people who are inclined to bend the rules will do so out of simple ignorance of those rules. It ought to be the centerpiece of the journalism curriculum. Instead, it’s an afterthought for the journalism majors and and an unknown concept for many grassroots reporters.
Leftists are liars, therefore liars are the only people eligible for credibility.
However, it’s important to understand that most lefties don’t look at themselves as liars. That would require a cynicism and a self-consciousness worthy of Goebbels. Most of these scribes are self-righteous True Believers-the kind that kept Eric Hoffer up at night.
Thank goodness he didn’t say they were going to be targeted.
Shapiro added that other websites like Buzzfeed “hide behind this patina of entertainment in order to promote a left-wing agenda.”
‘Tis the Alinsky model based on Antonio Gramsci, Italian Communist relying on gradualism, that is at play with sites as mentioned above.
It SUCKS, but it does seem to accomplish the purpose, regardless of intellect, high or low.
I’m all for Ben Shapiro getting up in the Left’s grill, especially when you can put a face to their madness. Politico and its ex-WaPo hacks should all burn in hell for their “haha” headline about the insider attack.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/03/11/politico-headline-reportedly-read-2-u-s-troops-killed-in-afghanistan-insider-attackhaha/
Benjamin Shapiro is right about CNN too. Don’t forget that their “Candy” rescued Obama from his Big Lie during the 2nd presidential debate when, acting as moderator/nose tackle, she became a left guard pulling and covering for him.
For those who forget the particulars, TAKE ONE LOOK at this image of Obama and see how the DAGGERS CAME OUT the very moment he got called out for lying. On national TV.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XSb_bBYx7Pc/UJD-_SjakNI/AAAAAAAACYo/kIrstfxmFdY/s1600/Obama_Benghazi.jpg
And Obama WAS lying that night… and still is.
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/09/30/no-obama-didnt-call-benghazi-act-of-terror-in-speech/
But “Candy” and the horse she rode in on (one and the same?) came to the rescue! In a scene that seemed rehearsed, Obama asked “Candy” to pony up her day-after-Benghazi-attack Rose Garden transcript that she had “miraculously” stashed like a hot pocket in her hip pocket. And sadly, the rest is history… of a Benghazi cover-up that is STILL going on.
Will this be fore or after Ben hunts down those pesky Friends of Hamas?