Shirley Sherrod/Andrew Breitbart

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/07/21/agriculture.employee.usda/index.html?hpt=T1

I hope she sues Breitbart and bankrupts the guy.

 

Once again, we as an industry are complacent in this sort of fiasco.

In the rush to be first on the Web, or at least not too far behind those who are, research and contemplation have flown the coop.

Discussions that should take place in newsrooms before stories are published are less important than getting the stories out there.

It's going to take some guts and some major changes in news policies for us to get any credibility back.

 

She was on a 3-hour drive in Georgia and got a phone call that said she should pull over and resign. Jumping the gun a little? The White House didn't even get an explanation? A 1:00 clip of a 45:00 speech is played and no one asks for a full rendering of the speech, transscription, or even asks her what she said? Bad job of course by Breitbart, but a real bad job by the administraiton.

 

What could she possibly sue him for? Did he fire her?

It was the Obama administration that fired this woman before gathering the facts.

And good for her for fighting back against them.

The 24 Hour News Cycle strikes again.

No one fact checked this story.

 

BTW, Breitbart's point was that audience cheered her story when it sounded like she was telling a story about "sticking it to the white man".

They didn't wait until it became a "story of redemption" before cheering.

 

There's really no way for the administration to fix this. And if I were Sherrod, I'd tell them where to shove it if they called and offered me my job back.

This makes two bogus stories Breitbart has successfully peddled. Maybe next time, the real media won't be so quick to hitch their wagons to this bum steer with an agenda.

Here's a thoughtful take from a thoughtful conservative on this:

http://theweek.com/bullpen/column/205190/shirley-sherrod-and-the-shame-of-conservative-media

When people talk of the "closing of the conservative mind" this is what they mean: not that conservatives are more narrow-minded than other people — everybody can be narrow minded — but that conservatives have a unique capacity to ignore unwelcome fact.

 

You know, it's funny what happens when regular people step into the spotlight.

"Joe the Plumber" gets famous when Obama walks down the street and he asks Obama a question.

The press jumped on him. Investigated him. His privacy was criminally violated by government employees.

This woman becomes famous when a one minute clip is aired on the web. The NAACP & the Obama administration, in a rush to stay ahead of the news cycle, throw her under the bus.

Now, the media is rushing in to rescue her.

Then, there are the three people who appeared with Obama at the unemployment insurance extension press conference. I've not read any independent reports of their situation.

Obama may have describe it 100% accurately, but I find it interesting that they have not been "investigated" to the same degree as a citizen who asked a simple question.

These three made a conscious decision to appear with him. They entered the fray willingly (unlike "Joe").

So will the press independently verify their stories?

 

Libel perhaps?

 

I'm guessing some media lawyers are working on this pro-bono even as we speak.

 

I was reading NewsBusters today and found Brent Bozell's column criticizing the mainstream media for not jumping on the story when the video came out pretty funny.

 

No, that wasn't Breitbart's point. Not at all.