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:
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.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY
