Why won't Andrew Breitbart hire a fact checker?
Written by Eric Boehlert
Published
The thin-skinned attack man on the right didn't like it when the Daily Beast's Conor Friedersdorf pointed out some obvious, gaping holes in the type of attack 'journalism' Breitbart preaches and practices [emphasis added]:
Mr. Breitbart's media empire, and the outlets with which he most closely associates himself, are thoroughly ideological enterprises, publish few if any ideologically heterodox pieces, seldom if ever correct factual mistakes, and ignore liberal insights entirely.
These are outlets that scoff at claims that the Times attempts objective journalism, but that never question the “fair and balanced” claim made by Fox News, or acknowledge that they deliberately ignore certain stories. Its critics cite columns written by the Times' “public editor” as evidence that the newspaper is unaccountable to the American people—yet they'd never dream of allowing semi-autonomous ombudsmen to operate on their own sites.
In his response posted at Andrew Sullivan's site, Breitbart remained completely silent about the fact that while attacking the mainstream media as being unfair and unprofessional, his sites regularly features falsehoods and almost never posts corrections when those falsehoods are detailed for all to see. And that was the Daily Beast's point: if Breitbart wants to be taken seriously, than he needs to start behaving seriously.
Right now, the junkyard of false accusations and pure fiction that litter his sites make it impossible to treat legitimately the right-wing critique of the press. i.e. Why should we listen to people who have no regard to fair play when they lecture the press about fair play?
And on yeah, Andrew, any luck further deciphering the audio from last week's big community-organizers-pray-to-Obama scoop? Keep us posted, okay?