NY Times repeats false claim Andrew Breitbart’s Shirley Sherrod tape was “misleading”
Trying to get liberal media to stop smearing Andrew Breitbart is like trying to get all the soap out of a sponge.
The NY Times has a story on how Breitbart News has become a center of political attention this year, and how its traffic and influence is at an all time high.
That was the focus of the article, but there was one paragraph that jumped out at me (emphasis added):
Before Mr. Breitbart died, the site had gained notoriety by championing the Tea Party movement and publicizing an undercover video that led to the closing of Acorn, the community organizing group. It also posted misleading footage of Shirley Sherrod, a black Department of Agriculture official, who was fired for seeming to express resentment toward a white farmer; the White House later apologized.
This is not the first time the NY Times has made this accusation. In a 2014 article about Breitbart News, the Times wrote;
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.
Wrong. False. Either ignorant or malicious.
I think it’s fair to say there is no one who has examined the initial video released regarding Shirley Sherrod more than I have. Multiple times over the years I’ve tried to correct the record with analysis of the actual video released. Contrary to what is claimed by haters of Andrew Breitbart, each of the items supposedly left out of the initial video which rendered it misleading actually was in the video. You can see the frame-by-frame analysis here, for example.
Here are some of my posts on the subject of the Sherrod tape:
- The Original Sherrod Clip Was Not “False”
- Dissecting Shirley Sherrod’s Complaint Against Andrew Breitbart
- Saturday Night Card Game (Repeat after me: “The Shirley Sherrod tape was not misleading”)(regarding AP and Politico article)
- Repeat after me again and again: “The Shirley Sherrod tape was not misleading” (regarding WaPo article)
- The myth of Andrew Breitbart’s “deceptively edited” Shirley Sherrod tape lives on at Slate.com
- NY Times perpetuates myth of Andrew Breitbart’s misleading Shirley Sherrod video
- Shirley Sherrod case settled, now put to bed myth that Breitbart’s tape was misleading
Andrew Breitbart is not around to defend himself against the Sherrod tape smears.
But at least I can keep calling out lazy, ignorant and malicious reporters who either don’t fact check or fact check and lie.
Needless to say, I’ve received not response to this tweet to the authors of the most recent NY Times article making the false accusation, seeking a correction
.@grynbaum @jwherrman Fix false accusation agst Andrew Breitbart https://t.co/vGZWgBbmYh > https://t.co/ZM3QCQ09pi pic.twitter.com/PtUnkhTQYI
— Legal Insurrection (@LegInsurrection) August 28, 2016
[Featured Image: Interview of Andrew Breitbart by Prof. Glenn Reynolds]
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Comments
DO YOU AGREE THAT THE EDITED VIDEO TOOK THINGS OUT OF CONTEXT?
Well, yes. But I put up what I had. It granted a great portion of her redemptive tale, but not all of it. If I could do it all over again, I should have waited for the full video to get to me.
– Breitbart interview with Newsweek
Cite?
Newsweek
BREITBART: I’D LIKE TO SPEAK TO SHERROD IN PRIVATE
BY DANIEL STONE ON 7/30/10 AT 2:48 PM
I’m not sure if it’s okay to post a link here:
http://www.newsweek.com/breitbart-id-speak-sherrod-private-214594
Obviously mweis was quoting Brietbart. So highlight the quote, right-click and choose the “Go To” option. The Newsweek article appears. Your welcome.
The what option? WTH are you talking about?
There is nothing to take out of context.
The literal meaning of her words is racist. She admitted to act from a racist standpoint. Yes, she says that she realized it was wrong, but she still says so from a racist standpoint.
“His own kind would take care of him…”
“I took him to one of his own…”
She admits that she had already decided “how much help” she was going to give the man BEFORE even listening to him.
How is that NOT racist?
She thought that she was “among friends” and that it was safe to open up. And she would have been safe, if that video had not gotten to Breitbart.
Why you responding to my comment? I never said it was taken out of context. I was just quoting Breitbart’s response to the interview question.
There’s confusion about the term “edited”. The NYT’s implication is that Breitbart edited the video before releasing it. He didn’t. But the video that he received and posted was a clip; it was not the whole speech, and didn’t pretend to be.
He posted it because it demonstrated the point he was making: that an NAACP audience heard someone confessing a moment of racism, and responded with laughter and applause, not with disapproval. The speaker’s thoughts and actions were never the point; the audience reaction was.
But idiot journalists with minuscule attention spans jumped to the conclusion that Sherrod was his target, even though he explicitly said she wasn’t, and they reported only her confession of racism, not her change of heart. They were the ones who “edited” that part out of their reporting, as if it had not been on the video at all. And then Breitbart got the blame for that.
In the interview he said that in hindsight he wished he’d waited to get hold of the whole speech, so that when he posted it nobody could refer to it as “edited”, and falsely accuse him of having done the editing, and so that nobody could claim that it cast Sherrod is a worse light than she deserved.
Quite right – the ENTIRE point was the NAACp audience applauding what they THOUGHT was a confession of racism.
Sherrod’s real sin wasn’t a momentary temptation, it was her & her husband’s participation in a multi-billion dollar fraud.
Milhouse: But the video that he received and posted was a clip; it was not the whole speech, and didn’t pretend to be.
So his “source” provided the edited clip.
Milhouse: He posted it because it demonstrated the point he was making: that an NAACP audience heard someone confessing a moment of racism, and responded with laughter and applause, not with disapproval.
No reasonable person watching the whole video would reach the conclusion that the NAACP audience was approving racism rather than responding to a tale of redemption. Yes, those who have been the object of scorn want to strike back, but they are saved by forgiveness.
Yet, racism was the narrative that Breitbart was selling.
The clip was not edited, it was just clipped. Every clip is by definition less than the whole thing. That’s why it’s a clip. But (1) there is nothing missing from the beginning to the end; (2) its start and end points were not chosen for the purpose of hiding anything; (3) it doesn’t mislead the viewer about the nature of the whole speech. The clip included Sherrod’s change of mind; what else do you think it should have included, short of not being a clip at all? Do you think nobody should ever use clips, and news reports should always include the entire footage shot?!
No reasonable person watching the whole video would reach the conclusion that the NAACP audience was approving racism rather than responding to a tale of redemption.
WTH are you talking about? They laughed and applauded when she said what she had done. There was no tale of redemption at that point; that part of the story came later. So why aren’t they shaking their heads and tutting, or even raising their voices in protest? Wouldn’t you expect that if a white person had just told a similar tale of how she had treated a black person? But here are these people perfectly happy with what they had just heard. Which showed that they were racists, and thus in no condition to be flinging that accusation at others.
Milhouse: So why aren’t they shaking their heads and tutting, or even raising their voices in protest?
Because the redemption story-form is well-known in the black community. Indeed, it is very much a part of American culture — outside the right-wing echochamber, of course.
She hadn’t told the second part yet; how did they know it was coming?
In any case, it wasn’t much of a redemption; she “evolved” from a racist into a classist. She “realized” that the true struggle is not between races but between classes, so the poor white farmer was her fellow proletarian with whom she should make common cause against the real ofay, the rich. But not all rich people, really, just white ones.
Milhouse: She hadn’t told the second part yet; how did they know it was coming?
Because the redemption *story-form* is well-known in the black community. Indeed, it is very much a part of American culture — outside the right-wing echochamber, of course.
Milhouse: it doesn’t mislead the viewer about the nature of the whole speech.
Andrew Breitbart: In this piece you will see video evidence of racism coming from a federal appointee and NAACP award recipient
http://www.webcitation.org/5rbhsjhzR
Yes, the point was the NAACP’s racism.
Milhouse: Yes, the point was the NAACP’s racism.
The statement refers to an individual, Sherrod, not the audience.
The main thing is that the video shows that blacks can be just as racist as whites.
Breitbart didn’t release the video to get her fired or say her actions were bad. He released it to confront the narrative that all whites are racist and all blacks are never racist.
What’s a good retort when it’s brought up that his estate settled with Sherrod? The fact his widow settled has been used as vindication that Andrew was wrong by those on the left.
The terms of the settlement are secret, so we don’t know whether it more than a nuisance settlement, i.e. less than the cost of proceeding. Sure, some of us were looking forward to Sherrod’s deposition, but the widow just wanted the case to go away, and if she could do that for less than the cost of going to court it made sense.
Reuse, recycle… He’s dead. Long live the narrative.
The Left is fighting a war of attrition in the press, government, schools, culture, and Planned Parenthood, targeting classes (e.g. race, sex, babies) and individuals for progressive exploitation.
This is why the NY Times doesn’t allow commenting on articles. They know comments would expose their blatant lies.
Didn’t Mr. and Mrs. Sherrod retire with millions pocketed from the fake Black farmers Pigford lawsuit against the USDA?
See: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2556601/posts
Long ago, it was established that the front page of the National Enquirer was more accurate than the front page of the New York Times.
The NY Times is a cult reading – no different than any rag North Korean dictators foist on their population.
Long ago, it was established that the front page of the National Enquirer was more accurate than the front page of the New York Times.
The NY Times is cult reading – no different than any rag North Korean dictators foist on their population.