NY Times perpetuates myth of Andrew Breitbart’s misleading Shirley Sherrod video
As we approach the second anniversary of Andrew Breitbart’s death, we need to keep fighting the smear against him regarding the Shirley Sherrod tape.
We have examined several times the false claim that the original edited videotape released by Andrew Breitbart of Shirley Sherrod’s speech to a local NAACP group was misleading in that it allegedly failed to reveal that Sherrod overcame her negative feelings towards a white farmer when she was a state agriculture official.
In fact, the original edited tape revealed that Sherrod overcame those feelings, as I have demonstrated over and over again through a frame-by-frame analysis:
- The Original Sherrod Clip Was Not “False”
- Dissecting Shirley Sherrod’s Complaint Against Andrew Breitbart
- Repeat after me: “The Shirley Sherrod tape was not misleading”
- Repeat after me again and again: “The Shirley Sherrod tape was not misleading”
Nonetheless, the media keeps claiming that Sherrod overcoming her racist feelings only was revealed when the unedited tape was released, after she was fired by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. She later was offerred her job back but refused, and settled with the government while pursuing legal claims against Breitbart (and his estate) and Larry O’Connor.
It’s happened again, in a NY Times article about the expansion of Breitbart.com, Breitbart News Network Plans Global Expansion:
It has been nearly two years since the conservative provocateur Andrew Breitbart died, but the online news organization that carries his name is not only continuing to wage his political battles, it is taking the war global.
Breitbart News Network, a group of activist, conservative news sites — including Big Government, Big Hollywood and Big Journalism — said on Sunday evening that it was adding at least a dozen staff members as it opens operations based in Texas and London. Stephen K. Bannon, the executive chairman of Breitbart News, said that those offices were the beginning of an expansion that would add a new regional site roughly every 90 days. California, Florida, Cairo and Jerusalem have already been chosen as expansion sites, he said.
Here’s the part about the Sherrod video:
At times Breitbart’s attack-the-enemy approach to journalism has landed the news operations in hot water. In 2010, for example, it was criticized for editing a video to make Shirley Sherrod, a former Agriculture Department official, appear to be making racist remarks about white people. The full video showed that she did not.
Just. Not. Correct.
Sherrod did make comments about the white farmer that could be construed as racist and also made comments about how she overcame those feelings, and all of that was on the original edited video:
It’s also worth noting that the point of the video was to document the cheering by the NAACP crowd when Sherrod made her negative comments about the white farmer. That laughing approval still is troubling.
I submitted the following request for correction:
You state in your article as follows: “In 2010, for example, it was criticized for editing a video to make Shirley Sherrod, a former Agriculture Department official, appear to be making racist remarks about white people. The full video showed that she did not.” That is not accurate. The ORIGINAL video disclosed the full context of the remarks, as my frame-by-frame analysis showed, https://legalinsurrection.com/2011/02/dissecting-shirley-sherrods-complaint-against-andrew-breitbart/
Will you make a correction in your article on this point?
I will let you know if I hear back. Hah.
As we approach the second anniversary of Andrew Breitbart’s death, we need to keep fighting against the smear made against him regarding the Shirley Sherrod tape.
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Comments
The Left never stops in its goal of achieving global totalitarian’ism.
A lying crook with the NYT on their side..
is still a lying crook.
Irrational Rational chanted this lie only today.
“Stupid is forever”.
Glad I decided to stop by. I guess I did get to you. LOL. Sill thinking of me. Ouch!
It is quite strange that the edited tape didn’t lie. Where was the story for Breitbart without the distortion? Does anyone seriously believe that Breitbart wanted to tell a heart warming story about a government official who overcame her racism and resentment and helped a poor white farmer? That doesn’t pass the laugh test.
Breitbart is the right-wing Sharpton
I don’t know how the tape plays frame by frame. Maybe it says that Paul McCartney is dead? Maybe it disproves the single bullet theory.? But at regular speed it managed to distort what Sherrod said. That was the intent. You trolls will buy anything to defend the party line.
Ask yourselves. Where was the story without the misleading editing? Answer: The was no story.
Hey, Rags. Glad to see me?
I have one brief question and two short follow ups. First, do you believe that the edited video was misleading because something material was omitted relating to Sherrod’s ultimate rejection of racism? If so, what portion of the longer video was omitted? If not, what’s the basis of your critique of Breitbart’s video?
You are a f—ing liar. “Strange” or not, it is an undeniable fact that the original video did not lie. And not just when viewed frame by frame. Anybody who saw it at normal speed knew that Sherrod recanted her earlier racism. That was not the point.
There’s no need to wonder what the story was. The original Breitbart report said what it was. And no, it wasn’t “a heart warming story about a government official who overcame her racism and resentment and helped a poor white farmer”. Why would you even think that, when the story made its point explicitly? The video clip posted, including Sherrod’s recantation, supported that story, and the edited video released later changed nothing.
Milhouse: he video clip posted, including Sherrod’s recantation, supported that story, and the edited video released later changed nothing.
Of course it did. Indeed, it was the point of the story. She went out of her way to help the white farmer.
Bullshit. What she did later, and how she felt about it, was irrelevant to the story. It wasn’t omitted from the clip, so the full video added nothing, but it wasn’t the point.
And no, I’m not going to tell you what the point of the story was, because if you were honest and read the story you would already know it. It’s not a mystery, and it’s not a subject for legitimate debate. The story explicitly stated its point, so nobody is entitled to suppose a different one. The only legitimate questions are whether the video clip posted with it supported that point (it did), and if so whether the full video falsified it (it didn’t).
Milhouse: What she did later, and how she felt about it, was irrelevant to the story.
Milhouse: The story explicitly stated its point, so nobody is entitled to suppose a different one.
Sherrod’s father was murdered with impunity by a white in the Jim Crow South. She worked for a coop of black farmers. Yet, she overcame her own personal prejudice and helped a white farmer save his farm. That’s the point of the story.
No, that may have been the point of Sherrod’s story. It was not the point of the story we are discussing, which is Breitbart’s story. His point was explicitly the audience reaction to Sherrod’s racism. Oh, and she didn’t work for a co-op of black farmers, she worked for a gang of black swindlers (see Pigford). There’s a difference.
Oh, and whether her father was murdered has never been established, and probably never will be. Three grand juries said the shooter had no case to answer; normally that would be definitive proof that it wasn’t murder, but of course in the circumstances of the time we can’t take their word for it. But that doesn’t mean they were wrong, just that we can’t be sure they were right.
Milhouse: His point was explicitly the audience reaction to Sherrod’s racism.
It was a story of redemption, and they were urging her on. It’s a typical format, especially in the black community. “I was deep in sin, then saw the light.” It’s obvious from the full video. By clipping the video, they created a false impression. Then Breitbart falsely stated that “her federal duties are managed through the prism of race and class distinctions”. She wasn’t working for the federal government at the time of the incident. Her story makes clear that she went out of her way to help the white farmer, which is supported by statements by the white farmer and his wife. The present tense of the statement is especially misleading, as it is clear from the full video that she no longer harbored bitterness.
Milhouse: Oh, and whether her father was murdered has never been established, and probably never will be.
He was shot in the back.
Rags, you love me so much I think I will come back regularly.
Oh, you SHOULD. I find trolls VERY useful as foils.
People would think your inanities are something we make up, but here you are.
LOVE the demonstrations! Thanks!
You threw a lot of unsupported BS on the thread. Now you get to back it up.
Go ‘head. I’ll just stand here and giggle.
Start by trying to justify your false equivalence between Sharpton and Breitbart.
The floor is yours. (Until you are used to mop it.)
You didn’t answer my question. Did you? Why would Breitbart be publishing a heart warming video of a government official who overcame her pastracism,helped a white farmer and became his friend? Why?
Answer that one. Rags.
I will get to Brietbart and Sharpton on my own terms. I don’t want you muddying up the issue or going off on a tangent.
NOW WHY? it doesn’t make sense. Come on now. Answer the question if you can. I don’t think you can because there is no rational answer for that question. Why?
He never claimed he was doing that. Did you follow the story? He posted the video (an uninterrupted portion of a speech, which he did NOT cut and paste to fashion a misinterpertation, e.g., like NBC’s George Zimmerman video and nearly every other clip of republicans they show on nightly news) in response to concerted slanders of the Tea Party as racist by NAACP leadership. He was demonstrating a racist response from an NAACP crowd. This is what the tape shows. At the same time, he also included her discussing the evolution of her own sentiments.
There is no story here. The Left is making a story because they hated Breitbart. That’s it. The Left does far worse every day. The examples are endless — reporting that Sarah Palin was illegitmately wearing a black bracelet to commemorate a fallen child in the Iraq War and NEVER retracting or apologizing when it was proven this was false. Reporting that a Tea Party member was the killer in the Aurora theater shootings and NEVER retracting or apologizing. Reporting that tea party members hurled racist invective and never apologizing or retracting when no proof was ever offered. Breitbart exposed and shamed you and you can’t take it. That’s all this is about.
What you need is what your father should have issued with his belt last year when you were six years old.
Rags, I am dropping out now. But I think I will come back regularly to see what you are up to. You need a truth monitor.
Well, good. See if you can find someone with integrity.
Because we know you are a liar, and don’t mind showing it.
Liar, eh. I don’t mind all your name calling. That is all you can do. Besides it is just opinion and IT IS not an opinion I value. But liar! That requires facts. What did I lie about? Come on, what did I lie about? I told the truth and you didn’t like it. But what did I lie about?
Put up or shut up. Prove that I am a liar or admit you were wrong and apologize. Do you have the guts for that? I doubt it. Put up or shut up. Where is the proof I am a liar? Come on. Bring it on. To you, that is just another insult. They are just words you use in place of argument.
SHOW I AM A LIAR. GO AHEAD. I KNOW YOU CAN’T BECAUSE I AM NOT A LIAR. BUT LET’S SEE YOUR CASE, YOU HOUSE TROLL.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2014/02/ny-times-perpetuates-myth-of-andrew-breitbarts-misleading-shirley-sherrod-video/comment-page-1/#comment-503207
and…
https://legalinsurrection.com/2014/02/guilty-jury-finds-michael-dunn-guilty-of-most-charges/comment-page-1/#comment-502973
When, I wrote…
Why would I take back a perfectly well-founded prediction, moronic troll?
If Holder or his myrmidons elect not to do as I very RATIONALLY predict, was my prediction somehow the result of hate, you lying POS? Or would it be because they simply found other things to do?
You know, like after the big talk following the Zimmerman verdict.
Collectivist troll.
_______________________
Oh, and “I am not a troll”…
to name just a few.
@Ragspierre All you showed was that you called me a liar before. That is not proof. You have nothing. But I can see that you don’t have the guts to admit that. Maybe you don’t even understand the concept. Stay in your little playpen. Use your poison pen. Stay where there is no one to objectively arbitrate, House Troll.
The conservative world has people capable of intellectual honesty, the ability to think and an ability with rhetoric. Sadly, you are not one of them. You are just a backboard that bats everything back while adding some moronic insults.
How is your prediction on Holder going? You are no Lewis Carroll, but your claim that your prediction is right even if it doesn’t come true, is worthy of the Red Queen.
Hey. House Troll. Take the last word. I am sure you will use it with as little style and wit as you have so far. Eventually, I will probably look at your response. Maybe not. It seems rather pointless. Defend your honor among the Yahoos.
“Your only stratagem is too attack and deny.”
(Gigglesnort)
It was a teachable moment for the NAACP audience. The New York Times edited the lesson to fit their preconceived narrative. All is fair in politics and abortion… I mean war.
The NY Times writer is Leslie Kaufman. She can be reached here.
https://myaccount.nytimes.com/membercenter/emailus.html
I sent her a similar note.
Thanks for noticing this.
Maybe it wasn’t misleading in a misleading way, but misleading in way that was misleading without being misleading.
Can’t we all just get along?
Breitbart was highly misleading, and the misinformation was amplified by the right-wing echochamber.
http://mediamatters.org/research/2010/07/22/timeline-of-breitbarts-sherrod-smear/168090
Wait…
You’re using MediaMutters (to itself in a cold, dank, basement) as your source-authority for a item about an echo-chamber…???
BWWWWWAAAAHAHAHAHA…!!!
Fallacy of diversion.
Why did the video get so much attention; first in the right-wing media and then in the MSM. Why?
There is no fallacy of diversion. You are doing the diverting. It makes no sense that a right-wing provocateur published a heart warming story about a government official and it went viral. There was some slight of hand there.
Please disregard 8:15 PM post. I misunderstood you. They are doing the diverting; not you. But that is the only arrow in Ragspierre’s quiver.
How FUN!
You demonstrate ad hominem, based on a lie, coupled with pathological projection. EXCELLENT!
It is you who deflect, divert, and dissemble. All troll crap, BTW.
Now, justify your stupid assertion that Breitbart is the equivalent of Sharpton.
We’re all waiting….
MMFA’s timeline shows nothing about the video itself. Sherrod admitted she didn’t give the white farmer her all, made derogatory comments about him because he was white, but then said she had a revelation that it’s not about race, it’s about rich v. poor. It’s all in the “edited” video. All George Soros’ money can’t change that. Nor can a commenter who links to MMFA.
Interesting thing is that it was Democrat Tom Vilsack who jumped to conclusions and fired her.
You need a new name. Why don’t you call yourself Ad Hominem. That is all you ever do.
See? Another flagrant lie. That seems your forte.
About Breitbart, about me, about your trolling…
The catalog grows daily.
Scroll up and watch the video. It’s not hard. You don’t trust your own senses? You need a third party to interpret it for you? The need for a false Narrative is so intense you would abdicate control of your own interpretive powers?
We have. The Breitbart post was misleading.
In what way was it misleading? What did it say that was 1) not true; 2) not supported by the video clip; 3) refuted by the full video?
Milhouse: In what way was it misleading?
Breitbart falsely said “her federal duties are managed through the prism of race and class distinctions”. She wasn’t working for the federal government at the time of the incident. Her story makes clear that she went out of her way to help the white farmer, which is supported by statements by the white farmer and his wife. The present tense of the statement is especially misleading.
Her entire story showed that she still saw the whole world through the prism of race and class distinctions. The present tense was very much justified. But she was not the point of the story; the whole point of the story was the NAACP audience reaction to her initial account of her racial discrimination against the farmer. To suppose otherwise one would need to ignore the entire context in which the story came, that of the NAACP’s vicious attack on the TEA Party movement, and Breitbart’s promise of a bombshell that would discredit the NAACP.
Milhouse: Her entire story showed that she still saw the whole world through the prism of race and class distinctions.
Her entire story showed how she rose above the bitterness of racism.
Milhouse: But she was not the point of the story; the whole point of the story was the NAACP audience reaction to her initial account of her racial discrimination against the farmer.
The entire story revealed that they were just urging her on in her story of redemption. Even the Anchoress got that saying “it seemed like Sherrod was heading somewhere with that story, and the edit does not let us get there. I want the rest of the story before I start passing judgment on it.”
Seriously? Media Matters is your source for objectivity?
Well, it is possible you’re being sarcastic.
Why did Breitbart want to publish the video? Eh? Was he celebrating the heartwarming story of a government official doing the right thing?
He was exposing the racism of the NAACP when they applauded the discrimination of a white man by a black government official.
You seem stuck on the absurd idea that the video was about Sherrod.
But that is not the only applause. By the end they were applauding her compassion. That is not the story Breitbart wanted to tell.
I can understand a moment of schadenfreude. Blacks have been getting the short end of the stick for centuries. But that was not the true lesson of the speech. The true lesson was to do the right thing. The true lesson is that it isn’t black against white, but rich against poor. Do you claim that is what Breitbart was selling?
Please explain the favorable interpretation of the applause in the first instance? What proof do you have that the same people who applauded her first revelation – that she acted out of racial retribution – applauded her second one?
A side point – blacks have been getting the short end of the stick UNTIL the 13th, 14th, & 15th Amendments were enacted. From that point on, there was constitutional equality (which of course needed to be enforced for many years before it ‘took’). Today’s racism whining is almost always a private one-on-one matter, if it is real. A lot of time it’s about affirmative action hires getting caught up with their own lack of ability.
Well, to be faithful to history, your Progressive fellow Collectivists were some of the worst racial bigots in history, what with their Jim Crow laws and eugenic efforts.
So (inadvertently) you stumbled into something approaching a true statement.
There is nothing heart-warming about Sherrod’s conversion from racism to Marxism. Bigotry against the rich is no more laudable than bigotry against the white. But that was not the point of the story. The point, the entire point, was the audience reaction to Sherrod’s story of the wrong she did to the farmer. The point was that you would never find a video of a TEA Party meeting cheering such a story. TEA Partiers would be appalled at it, regardless of the races involved; and they wouldn’t be much impressed by the second part either.
That was Breitbart’s story. It was always and only about defending the TEA Party movement from the scurrilous attacks of the hustlers at the NAACP, by contrasting the two groups. The biggest proof for this is that Breitbart announced this before he released the story in the first place. He said for several days that he was sitting on a bombshell that would discredit the NAACP, and then he published this story. Are you really claiming there was no connection between the announcement and the story?!
Milhouse: The point, the entire point, was the audience reaction to Sherrod’s story of the wrong she did to the farmer.
It was a story of redemption. They were urging her on. It was very apparent from the entire video.
Excuse me? They were urging her on before they heard that she had converted from racism to Marxism? (Not that that is anything to cheer, but they didn’t know about it yet.) They were cheering her racist acts. Because they’re a vicious gang of racists, just as Breitbart said.
Milhouse: Because they’re a vicious gang of racists, just as Breitbart said.
This is parody, right? Loci is that you?
Why did the video get so much attention; first in the right-wing media and then in the MSM. Why?
There is no fallacy of diversion. You are doing the diverting. It makes no sense that a right-wing provocateur published a heart warming story about a government official and it went viral. There was some slight of hand there.
Indeed, the slight of hand is your implicit lie in framing your questions as you do.
The NAACP long ago became a mere organelle of the Collective, as many past members would attest.
And many find the racism of their former fellows appalling.
You give it a hand-wave. A common trollish tactic.
Irrational, your question has been repeatedly asked, and repeatedly answered.
You, in your narcissism, thought it a killer question, so you ignored the answers and kept insisting on the same false premise, and hand-waved the answers.
“It makes no sense that a right-wing provocateur published a heart warming story about a government official and it went viral.”
Let us deal with your “killer question” on its own terms. Let us apply the razor of “the turn-around test”.
A white bureaucrat addresses an organization whose purpose is explicitly the advancement of white people. He relates a story about a rich black supplicant for the bureaucratic largess the functionary has power to dispense, and indeed for which dispensing he is paid as a “public servant”.
He tells his audience in candor that his own racist filters make it difficult to help the citizen he is paid to help; that, indeed, he finds dealing with this black applicant so odious and difficult that he considers sending him to a black bureaucrat in the office.
To this revelation, his white audience warmly applauds.
But…no…the better angels of his nature intercede, and he condescends to help the person it is his job to help, regardless of his racist aversions.
Now, instead of the bigotry of racism, in this paroxysm of “heartwarming” humanity, he applies the bigotry of class in doling out the largess that is his job to administer, seeing his supplicant as a rich man instead of a black man.
Or, as you approvingly related, “The true lesson is that it isn’t black against white, but rich against poor.”
Now. Assume ANY media outlet obtains a tape of that speech, and airs the parts we know are at issue. (With the entire tape…unusually…made available, too.) Note that the tape is not “edited” one jot in the sense it distorts the matters it relates when it is aired. It is contiguous and whole through the segment.
Is that story going to be reported as a “heart warming story about a government official”?
Or is the bureaucrat and his audience prone to be execrated for days as the racial bigots they ARE.
How many commentators are going to say, “Oh, NO! That bureaucrat later eschewed his racism entirely”?
How many are going to drone on for days about “white privilege”?
And what will the meme be concerning the racist members of the all white gathering, and their cheering on of the discrimination described?
No need to lie or dissemble. We all know the truth. And I can predict you will deny the truth.
And what of the bigotry of class? The bureaucrat admits he helped the supplicant because he was rich, and not poor.
We know you approve of that bigotry. Well, and others…
Now, let us examine your question under the hood, shall we?
“It makes no sense that a right-wing provocateur published…”.
You have claimed you were “not an ideologue”. You have claimed “objectivity”, and that you are “intellectually honest”.
That short sentence fragment belies you. Powerfully. Completely.
Breitbart did what a good journalist SHOULD be doing: he faithfully and accurately opened a window on the conduct of people. He, of course, told a story. That is what one does as a journalist.
And you are so completely enthralled by your Collective you come here and throw up moonbat talking points that have been packed up your butt by your punk meisters. Trite ones, at that.
Which, in the main, is all you do here with very few exceptions.
And you do it as a troll.
See?
Sherrod is suing a widow. The content of her character!
Of course Breitbart’s article is misleading.
Breitbart: this federally appointed executive bureaucrat lays out in stark detail, that her federal duties are managed through the prism of race and class distinctions.
Sherrod wasn’t working for the federal government at the time of the incident. She explains how and why she is *not* managing her duties through the prism of race, and she went out of her way to help the white farmer. (Sherrod’s father had been murdered under Jim Crow.) Furthermore, the intended narrative was amplified by the right-wing echochamber.
Gateway: “More Racism at NAACP: Radical Obama Official Admits That She Openly Discriminates Against Whites”;
HotAir: “Breitbart hits NAACP with promised video of racism”;
Fox News: “Days after the NAACP clashed with Tea Party members over allegations of racism, a video has surfaced showing an Agriculture Department official regaling an NAACP audience with a story about how she withheld help to a white farmer facing bankruptcy.”
And so on.
“Sherrod wasn’t working for the federal government at the time of the incident.”
Dude, you really need to learn to read. Watch the very beginning of the video for the text box that says exactly that.
You can believe what you want about Mrs. Sharrod’s complete exorcism of her racist tendencies, but I suggest you are applying a different template than you would for a person of another race. The bigotry of low expectations.
And the is much SINCE all this that should give you pause.
Ragspierre: Dude, you really need to learn to read. Watch the very beginning of the video for the text box that says exactly that.
That wasn’t part of the initial release. In any case, it still left the impression she was managing her federal duties through the prism of race, and that simply wasn’t the case. It was misleading, and then amplified by the right-wing echochamber.
So it is hunky-dory that she manages FEDERAL funds as a state bureaucrat via a patently racist prism?
Which she clearly DOES do. Did you get the references to “their kind”? She sees people as racial groups.
But some of her best new friends are white people. Of the right kind.
Sorry, you are just an apologist.
Ragspierre: So it is hunky-dory that she manages FEDERAL funds as a state bureaucrat via a patently racist prism?
She worked for a co-op. She went out of her way to help the white farmer. Meanwhile those who actually racially discriminated against blacks never lost their jobs.
So she began to substitute class for race; how did that make it any better?
In any case, it wasn’t true; she cited another case that had happened recently, in which she had worked hard to prevent a black landowner from selling to a white customer. She was so proud of how she had “saved” the land from being owned by white people. Blatant racism.
But Breitbart’s point was never her actions or her motivation, but the NAACP audience’s reaction. The whole story was that they cheered her racist actions.
For libs, the Breitbart film has become their Zapruder film, lol. In 20 years they’ll be defending Obama/Clinton over Benghazi, another story becoming a liberal defensive touchstone and troll launcher.
Why bother with argument? Just be honest, go with ‘because I said so.’
It’s actually worse than the professor states in his post. The initial iteration of the lie was to suggest that Brietbart editted the video to exclude exculpatory evidence. Professor Jacobson has thoroughly debunked that line of attack. But as time goes on, the narrative shifts as distortion is piled upon distortion. Here the NY Times reporter is a step removed from the original distortion – she actually claims that the video showed Sherrod wasn’t racist at all. Note how that 1) is an even worse attack than the original distortion (now Brietbart is guilty of painting someone for racism who didn’t display it, while previously he was only guilty of not including the detail that Sherrod had reformed her racist behavior) and 2) it further deifies Sherrod. Sherrod admitted to racist behavior towards a white farmer. That is indisputable. But the NY Times reporter claims to the contrary. That’s even worse than the original smear. D.GOOCH
Perhaps the Times burried the lede on this one, e.g. Breitbart’s organizations are growing; expanding into new markets, some international; adding staff; providing on-line access; waging the war they’ve been presented with by the likes of the Times. . . which is losing by all the same measures.
Perhaps, also, dear Times, a page from the Alinsky rules here by dredging up the tired old Sherrod story, ‘it’s never about what it’s about.’ You’re losing so changed the subject. Problem is, you didn’t choose very well; you chose a subject where a competitor, Breitbart, simply reported the news more than two years ago. You folks made Breitbart the story. Good thinking. Worked then, why not do it again. Duh.
Carlos Slim must wonder what the hell he was thinking. Us too.