FoxNews.com article on Sherrod disappears Breitbart
July 20, 2010 10:22 pm ET by Matt McLaughlin
There's a glaring omission in the latest FoxNews.com story about the resignation of Agriculture Department official Shirley Sherrod: the names of Andrew Breitbart and his Big Government website.
It was Breitbart himself who first posted video of Sherrod speaking at an NAACP event in March and wrote that the clip was "video evidence of racism coming from a federal appointee and NAACP award recipient." Fox News picked up the story and ran with it -- both online and on several of its shows.
In its first online report, Fox News.com noted that "[t]he video clip was first posted by BigGovernment.com." Bill O'Reilly played the video on his show and called on Sherrod to "resign immediately" -- and made sure to mention Big Government. During a discussion in which Newt Gingrich bemoaned Sherrod's "viciously racist attitude," Sean Hannity said the video was on "Breitbart.com."
But now that the story is unraveling, Fox seems unwilling to give Breitbart and Big Government the credit for the video. In its June 20 article about Sherrod's resignation, Fox News reported that the video "surfaced" and credited the video to YouTube. The article makes no mention that Breitbart first posted the video on Big Government or that Fox personalities had pushed the story repeatedly.
But this isn't something that Breitbart and Fox can walk away from so easily.
It's July 20, not June.