Andrew Breitbart is a brilliant tactician with information. His latest pronouncement, however, is what one would expect from a political activist rather than an honest journalist seeking to inform the public, notes Daniel Crandall.
When mainstream journalists time story releases during an election year order in order to advantage a Democrat over a Republican, all reasonable people know that this is activism disguised as journalism. So what is it when an online journalist declares that he will time the a news story’s release to favor Republicans over Democrats?
During an interview with Sean Hannity, Andrew Breitbart declared,
“And this message is to Attorney General Holder: I want you to know that we have more tapes, it’s not just ACORN, and we’re going to hold out until the next election cycle, or else if you want to do a clean investigation, we will give you the rest of what we have, we will comply with you, we will give you the documentation we have from countless ACORN whistleblowers who want to come forward but are fearful of this organization and the retribution that they fear that this is a dangerous organization. So if you get into an investigation, we will give you the tapes; if you don’t … we will revisit these tapes come election time.” (emphasis added)
Granted the Left is much more cagey and underhanded with their informational weapons in the political battle of ideas. Typically they only release a story when it is all but impossible for its targets to adequately respond, and they will never warn their targets ahead of time. The only thing that makes Breitbart different from his ideological opponents, however, is he’s willing to negotiate the story’s release date.
Conservatives should no more praise Breitbart’s behavior in this matter than they would praise what happened to Bruce Herschensohn in 1992, Michael Huffington in 1994, Darrell Issa in 1998, or what Democrats in the Media attempted against George W. Bush in 2000 with the late release of his 1976 DUI conviction.
Breitbart was brilliant when he broke the ACORN, pimp, and prostitute scandal. As Bill Whittle put it, Breitbart “positioned his pieces in such a way, that every move his opponents made drew them ever deeper into the trap he had set for them.” While the release of that story had political ramifications, Breitbart’s direct opponents were ideologues in the Mainstream Media, not politicians. It is one thing to time a story’s release in order to show the establishment members of the Fourth Estate to be ideological hacks intent on turning journalism into propaganda. It is something else entirely to explicitly target political opponents with the release of a news story.
If Breitbart wants to prove himself to be something more than another conservative movement political activist, operating under the guise of journalism, then he should stop this informational blackmail.
Brian, I like the way you put this. Breitbart is able to fight back without losing his credibility as a journalist because he has none as far as the MSM are concerned. Meanwhile, his greater honesty about his aims ends up giving him greater credibility among the public than the mainstream media have, for the latter’s obvious but unacknowledged bias paints them as both unprincipled and hypocritical.
This, to me, is the answer to press bias: acknowledgment that everyone has biases, and embracing of the genius of the Founders’ reasoning for freedom of the press: that the press as a whole, not any particular individual outlet, would ultimately be unbiased, by virtue of allowing all parties to be heard. That was Jefferson’s point, and it remains true today.
Jim — thanks for the pointer to Breitbart’s C-Span manifesto. That answers my (only semi-rhetorical) first question. Maybe I, too, would be troubled if Breitbart were claiming the mantle of a journalist while doing this.
It seems that for the last few years, many of us have wondered, “Why doesn’t some news show fight back against NBC et al?” The answer is now revealed: journalists couldn’t do it, because what they’re doing isn’t journalism, it’s activism. And Breitbart is beating them at their own game with the added benefit of honest acknowledgment of his biases and aims.
Sam and Brian stole a lot of the thunder I was going to rain down on this post before I got pulled away for a previous engagement today. And I can hardly put it better than they. But a few thoughts, nonetheless.
If you saw Breitbart’s appearance on C-Span a few weeks ago (easily found by searching that site) you get a better idea where he’s coming from. If memory serves, he says he’s not Republican, but conservative (but I could be misremembering). Anyway, Breitbart is an ex-leftist, which makes him more of a scourge of the left than we who were never on the left. He sees, perhaps more clearly, the utter corruption of the left/liberal media/cultural complex (the Clarence Thomas hearings was his turning point). And he lives, of course, in the belly of the elite Hollywood leftist elite. He shrugged off the fact that his political and cultural transformation (“awakening” is more accurate), has cost him friends.
Breitbart’s whole purpose, openly communicated, for creating Big Hollywood, Big Government, and the other “Big” sites he has in the queue are to do battle — to aggressively counter the grip of leftist group-think on America’s most important institutions. Much of the Right, he felt, had given up and ceded that ground. His “Big” idea is to start taking it back. You may see his tactics of holding “hot” stories until they can do the most damage to the left as somewhat nefarious. Breitbart sees it for what it is: A necessary tactic of fighting fire with fire.
As a conservative first and Republican second, I’ve long been disheartened by the lack of real “fight” on my side. Kudos to Breitbart for his willingness to engage in battle with the same weapons as his opponents.
To give a recent example of the hypocrisy of the liberal media, Dana Milbank — the male version of Maureen Dowd at The Washington Post — recently penned a piece ripping Senate Republicans for considering the “judicial filibuster” against some of Obama’s nominees. To the left, the Republicans are just supposed to suck it up and not play by the poisonous rules the Democrats established. Or somehow they are in the wrong. No sale. I, for one, am sick of the left poisoning the well, changing the rules, playing dirty … and then taking seriously the howls of protest at the few times when Republicans and conservatives go against their nature, and fight back in kind.
The establishment media has demonstrated that if you don’t play the game right, you don’t get the attention you deserve. When would be a good time for Breitbart to release *all* the vids? What happens when he does? Anyone observing the current state of the media knows, the half-life of the scandal generated when he releases all the tapes would be roughly equal if only slightly longer than that from each individual vid. In this dysfunctional scenario, the release of all the vids would be a relief to the administration and to NBC et al.
The establishment media and the administration’s ignoring this story is in itself a story, and one that is ongoing whether Breitbart releases all the tapes or one at a time. It’s just likely to come to more people’s attention if he dollops it out.
Brian, I believe that Breitbart sees himself as more honest than mainstream journalists for the reason you note: he is shedding light on important stories the MSM ignores. We should be concerned, however, when journalists start thinking it is their job to score “victories” for or against any political administration. If I recall correctly, commentators on the Right were outraged, and properly so, when Chris Matthews declared it was his job to make sure the Obama administration succeeded.
Henry, I appreciate the comment but must dissent from your view on how well a job “print journalism” has been doing. I think it is clear that mainstream journalists soft-pedal stories that cast the current administration in a negative light. For example, Obama rammed the second stimulus through Congress declaring that if it did not pass a national tragedy would ensue. Furthermore, he stated that it would prevent unemployment would from getting over 8%. It is now 10.2%. Where are the journalists are demanding answers?
S.T., I approve of what Breitbart is doing, as well, as he sheds light on stories the MSM ignores because they do not fit their liberal-left narrative. That is why I use the word honest rather than objective. I think Andrew is a breath of fresh air by being honest about his biases, in an age when mainstream journalists hide behind their headlines, declaring themselves “objective” pursuers of the truth.
My issue is not with what Breitbart is doing in the realm of journalism. My issue is with his explicitly declaring that he will use news in order to favor one party over another. I bring this up because of the threat he made against an administration to release a story in order to benefit Republicans. If the shoe were on the other foot, I think we would easily see how this particular tactic is problematic.
I want Holder to investigate ACORN and any other group if those groups are breaking the law, as much as anyone else. I just do not believe we should be sanguine when those who disseminate the news use their role to threaten and effectively blackmail politicians into doing what this or that journalist wants them to do.
If Andrew has more tapes that incriminate more organizations then he should release them to the public and let the chips fall where they may.
Daniel, I very strongly approve of what Andrew Breitbart is doing. In my view, articulated several times in this publication, journalistic objectivity is an ideal that is never, ever accomplished on an individual basis. All writers and editors make a myriad of choices, and their consequences can be subtle and even undetectable, causing the unwary to think that they are being given objective information. Nothing could be further from the truth.
But where objectivity can be achieved is in the culture as a whole. If people in the media aggressively purse both (or all) sides of any issue, the information will, on balance, be there for wise people to find the truth.
That was the goal of our nation’s Founders: not to browbeat individual journalists into seeking an impossible objectivity but to enable the culture itself to provide that objectivity by allowing a free airing of all sorts of thinking.
By bringing to light information that would otherwise be hidden, Breitbart is contributing greatly to that overall objectivity.
Often print journalism does an excellent job of reporting on American culture and government. Journalism or Activism alone may not be the primary issue, but rather how much accurate information and facts the journalist or writer brings to the national communication table.
Television news and programming is the area of greatest weakness on reporting of government failures, such as waste, fraud and abuse, abridging liberties and failing to correlate profit motive of lobbyists with formulation of laws Congress passes that sometimes does not benefit the American people.
Major questions on government performance and established government policies are seldom examined in a continuous and systematic fashion for their flaws, errors, defects and incompetence in order for constructive change to emerge.
Where and when is superpower incompetence ever examined by the mainstream media? Praise, adoration, national self-applause by the media is often the norm. How are national problems solved in this cultural environment? Also it appears that national problems are really not meant to be solved, but covered up or ignored.
I think the strength of a democracy is ultimately measured and determined by how much factual, critical and accurate information is provided to the citizenry by the free press as well as how well the citizenry is educated and knowledgeable about the U.S. Constitution.
Where exactly does Breitbart ask us to regard him as “an honest journalist seeking to inform the public?” He’s been playing a game all along, as is obvious from the fact that he’s winning. The greatest victory — for us all, not just for Breitbart — would be for the administrtation, or at least the establishment media, to take this story seriously.
Thanks, B