Shirley Sherrod

On Thursday for Friday's print edition, the New York Times carried a weakly headlined but well-written story entitled "U.S. Opens Spigot After Farmers Claim Discrimination" on its front page. Written by Sharon LaFraniere with the help of three others, it laid out how what began in 1997 as a class-action suit by black farmers (Pigford v. Glickman) claiming they had suffered discrimination at the…

There's been a lot of ugly stuff in the blogosphere as well as various social networking websites such as Twitter since Thursday's shocking announcement that conservative publisher Andrew Breitbart died at the age of 43. Possibly the most offensive came in a headline from New York Amsterdam News titled "Anti-Black Journalist Andrew Breitbart Dies Suddenly":

Anyone who saw what the Associated Press wrote when former Bush 43 press secretary Tony Snow died in 2008 (original AP article; related NewsBusters post) knew that the wire service would do what it could to subtly distort Andrew Breitbart's considerable accomplishments in exposing leftist hatred, duplicity, and criminality. The only question was what form(s) it would take. Not surprisingly,…

As someone who was one of the best fighters against the left-wing media hegemony, Andrew Breitbart was also frequently victimized by lazy reporters who didn't bother to report correct information about him. This was a particular problem for Andrew because he was such a target for liberals making up lies which got repeated so often, they've become widely accepted as truth. Unfortunately and…

If you're not familiar with GRITtv or Laura Flanders, you will be because her far-left, antagonistic, attack dog style is starting to become all the rage to liberal hosts especially on MSNBC. On Friday, as part of the panel discussion on HBO's "Real Time," Flanders in her own aggressive style impolitely went after fellow guest conservative publisher Andrew Breitbart feeling the need to bring…

The outrage over Martin Bashir's absolutely pathetic interview with Andrew Breitbart Wednesday continues. On Thursday's "O'Reilly Factor," the host and his guest Glenn Beck wondered how long MSNBC can stay in business with commentators behaving this way (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Following Martin Bashir's absolutely pathetic interview with Andrew Breitbart Wednesday, the conservative publisher has proposed a $10,000 bet with the perilously liberal MSNBC host. "I’m willing to take a lie detector test next to him on anything," Breitbart told WOR radio's Steve Malzberg Thursday, "if he’s willing to take a lie detector test next to me talking about whether he read my book…

Yes, Virginia, there is someone in media more unhinged than Ed Schultz -- left-wing radio host Mike Malloy. If you've heard of Malloy, most likely it's because of his bizarre, on-air fantasies of violence toward Dana Perino, Matt Drudge, Glenn Beck, and Rush Limbaugh, as described here with audio clips from Brian Maloney at The Radio Equalizer. Malloy has decided to remind us again of his…

Perhaps AOL acquiring The Huffington Post isn't such a bad thing after all. Liberal filmmaker, writer and photographer Lee Stranahan did something one doesn't often see at the left-wing news aggregator -- he broke from the pack to defend "the notorious Andrew Breitbart," publisher of Breitbart.com and a slew of similar sites where he basks in skewering liberals. In his HuffPo article,…

At NPR, you cannot admit your prejudices, even in the context of disavowing them. You can, however, suggest that a U.S. Senator and his grandchildren should be infected with the AIDS virus, claim the world would be a better place if everyone who believes in the Christian rapture did not exist, claim that Newt Gingrich seeks "a civil way of lynching people," and, as long as you are just a…

Why are Americans not being bombarded with sermons on the irresponsibility of blogs and new media generally? After all, the White House's attacks on the Chamber of Commerce originated with a salacious, factually-erroneous report on a highly partisan left-wing blog. Shouldn't we be hearing about the dangers of relying on new media for political news? We were inundated with such talk after the…

The theater of the Sherrods continues. Earlier today, Shirley Sherrod, who, according to the current version of ruling class wisdom, was prematurely evacuated from the USDA by Director Tom Vilsack, decided not to accept an offer to return to the agency. Instead, according to Politico's Matt Negrin, "she hasn’t accepted the department’s offer to work there again, but that she wants 'some type of…

The Theater of the Sherrod(s) is apparently not over. At AL.com last night, Mike Tomberlin of the Birmingham News reported the following: Former USDA employee Shirley Sherrod says she will meet Tuesday with agriculture secretary Shirley Sherrod, the former USDA rural development director for Georgia, said today she plans to meet Tuesday with U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack to discuss…

What follows was eminently predictable, but noting it is nonetheless necessary. Shirley Sherrod, and to a lesser extent her husband Charles, were media celebrities for a while in late July. Readers might have noticed their near absence from establishment media news reports during the past seven days. It would be easy to think that this has occurred because the story played itself out, with…