NY Times repeats false claim Andrew Breitbart’s Shirley Sherrod tape was “misleading”

WILLIAM A. JACOBSON AUG 28, 2016 9:20 PM

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

[Featured Image: Interview of Andrew Breitbart by Prof. Glenn Reynolds]

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