On The HuffPo, Andrew Breitbart and The Eyeball Grab Business Model™ Let’s say you run a popular flea market. Like, really popular. Your vendors don’t necessarily hawk the best wares, but people come from far and wide anyway because they like that your market is a one-stop shop that brings together a spectacularly vast array of products. And it’s built up a great reputation through the years, so people feel like they can trust your underpaid, ragtag group of motivated vendors. Now, having sold your popular flea market for hundreds of millions of dollars to an aging owner of vacant lots, together you decide the best way to get even more all-important foot traffic through the door is to expand the number of sellers. Would you, having come to this rather normal business decision, hire: A) a respected merchant from a well-reputed store in town? B) a much-ballyhooed young merchant with a sizable clientele who’s earned the big stage? C) a well-known discredited swindler who comes wickedly close to boasting about his underhanded sales tactics in order to sell as much useless controversial crap as possible? If you answered C, congratulations, you are Arianna Huffington. And if you are C, sorry, but you are Internet raconteur and master of conservative agitprop Andrew Breitbart. Breitbart, who in a past life (when he looked like he actually slept) was a researcher for Huffington and claims he helped launch the Huffington Post, is now blogging for the site. Full circle, indeed. The problem with the Eyeball Grab Business Model™ is that inevitably you’ll sleep with whomever will make for the best-trafficked bedfellow, regardless of the consequences. But it’s not all that much different than intentionally having sex with someone you know has gonorrhea. It might burn two to five days later. I’m all for the (flea) marketplace of ideas. The point of this is not to say that conservatives shouldn’t have a home on the Huffington Post or elsewhere in the “lamestream media.” They do, and they should. But what Breitbart does is in no way reputable, in no way above-board and in no way should be affiliated with anyone who wants to be taken seriously as a credible source of news and information. In one single decision, Huffington managed to wipe out the good journalistic deeds she’s done by hiring New York Times business reporter Peter Goodman and Newsweek senior Washington correspondent Howard Fineman. And it’s new Huffington hires like that who should be pissed about it. In his very first piece, an intellectually challenged missive that seemed to say “Thanks for the keys to the car, Mom, I promise to bring it back in only 20-30 pieces,” Breitbart launched a partisan attack that propped up the equally discredited James O’Keefe, waged war on NPR and had the audacity to refer to his passion for “honest debate” and “fairness in the media.” His first paragraph: The latest James O’Keefe success story against NPR has taken a predictable pattern — panicked press releases and firings, followed by denunciation of O’Keefe in a belated attempt to discredit him. Naturally, conservatives are crowing about it, but I wanted to give a little perspective to those Huffington Post readers — whatever your political stripe — who share my passion for free speech, honest debate, and fairness in the media. Breitbart admitted right out of the gate that he has no intention of serving his new employer well, for his idea of a “success story” and “honest debate” is someone who edited a video so underhandedly that even notorious fabricator Glenn Beck’s site, The Blaze, took O’Keefe’s NPR to task for completely distorting truth and destroying reality. But, for Breitbart, this is reality. Reality for him is making his name on complete and utter fabrications, for playing more than fast and loose with facts, for smearing the name of a government employee named Shirley Sherrod when he knew the tape he published would be taken wildly out of context, for his role in the heavily edited pimp-n-prostitute videos that demolished an organization called ACORN that advocated for low- and moderate-income families. This is the man Arianna Huffington chose to hire to blog? This is not a marketplace of ideas. This is not about freedom of speech. This is about a sinister man with sinister motives doing everything he can to poison truth and to attract controversy so he can profit from it. And now, perhaps, the same can be said about Arianna Huffington — attract as much controversy, then profit from it. We all lose on this one. Slade Sohmer is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of HyperVocal.com. He also spent two years as the executive producer of the Lou Dobbs Show, where he learned often about the marketplace of ideas and a thing or two about having civil conversations with people with whom you don’t agree. Slade Sohmer Slade Sohmer is editor-in-chief of HyperVocal and co-host of SiriusXM's daily "Politics Powered By Twitter" program. Tweet him at @SladeHV.
Andrew Breitbart 16.03.11 @ 4:13 pm So much of what you have written here is untrue – and defamatory: 1) Breitbart, who in a past life (when he looked like [SIC] actually slept) was a researcher for Huffington and claims he helped launch the Huffington Post, is now blogging for the site. Full circle, indeed. * In fact, I did help launch the Huffington Post. Arianna will not deny that. And I beg you to do basic research and you will find that I CREATED the site with her. It was my written and oral planning from Dec ’04 – May ’05 that constituted HuffPost’s road map toward launch. But, for Breitbart, this is reality. Reality for him is making his name on complete and utter fabrications, for playing more than fast and loose with facts, for smearing the name of a government employee named Shirley Sherrod when he knew the tape he published would be taken wildly out of context, for his role in the heavily edited pimp-n-prostitute videos that demolished an organization called ACORN that advocated for low- and moderate-income families. * Are you a journalist? Seriously? How do you divine that I knew the tape would be taken ‘wildly out of context’? Do you even know the basics of the story or have read my post that contextualized the story? (It was about the NAACP and not Sherrod – and the NAACP APOLOGIZED for the audiences’ reaction to their positive response to Sherrod’s story of discriminating against a white farmer. The NAACP audience did not know she would eventually ‘help’ the white farmer – which I stated in the blog post she eventually did.) * BigGovernment.com provided the FULL AUDIO and TRANSCRIPTS of the O’Keefe ACORN videos as a stipulation of carrying Project Veritas’s independent production. No other site, including the Huffington Post, included the full context that showed beyond a reasonable doubt just how damaging the ACORN video sting was. What part of my narrative did you get right, you worthless and lazy partisan hack? All as you lecture your readers on good journalism. So typical. And why mainstream media is going down. No one trusts the old guards who falsely used ‘objectivity’ and a secret set of professional tools only found in J school or granted those accepted to the club in order to allow for a mostly left of center group of partisans to control the national narrative. Slade Sohmer, it will be fun following your career here on in. I love it when the Ron Schiller™ elites show just how dishonest they are in their pursuit of claiming a moral high ground. It’s why O’Keefe has such a target rich environment with the media. Beware the hidden camera!
Andrew Breitbart 16.03.11 @ 4:14 pm So much of what you have written here is untrue – and defamatory: 1) Breitbart, who in a past life (when he looked like [SIC] actually slept) was a researcher for Huffington and claims he helped launch the Huffington Post, is now blogging for the site. Full circle, indeed. * In fact, I did help launch the Huffington Post. Arianna will not deny that. And I beg you to do basic research and you will find that I CREATED the site with her. It was my written and oral planning from Dec ’04 – May ’05 that constituted HuffPost’s road map toward launch. But, for Breitbart, this is reality. Reality for him is making his name on complete and utter fabrications, for playing more than fast and loose with facts, for smearing the name of a government employee named Shirley Sherrod when he knew the tape he published would be taken wildly out of context, for his role in the heavily edited pimp-n-prostitute videos that demolished an organization called ACORN that advocated for low- and moderate-income families. * Are you a journalist? Seriously? How do you divine that I knew the tape would be taken ‘wildly out of context’? Do you even know the basics of the story or have read my post that contextualized the story? (It was about the NAACP and not Sherrod – and the NAACP APOLOGIZED for the audiences’ reaction to their positive response to Sherrod’s story of discriminating against a white farmer. The NAACP audience did not know she would eventually ‘help’ the white farmer – which I stated in the blog post she eventually did.) * BigGovernment.com provided the FULL AUDIO and TRANSCRIPTS of the O’Keefe ACORN videos as a stipulation of carrying Project Veritas’s independent production. No other site, including the Huffington Post, included the full context that showed beyond a reasonable doubt just how damaging the ACORN video sting was. What part of my narrative did you get right, you worthless and lazy partisan hack? All as you lecture your readers on good journalism. So typical. And why mainstream media is going down. No one trusts the old guards who falsely used ‘objectivity’ and a secret set of professional tools only found in J school or granted those accepted to the club in order to allow for a mostly left of center group of partisans to control the national narrative. Slade Sohmer, it will be fun following your career here on in. I love it when the Ron Schiller™ elites show just how dishonest they are in their pursuit of claiming a moral high ground. It’s why O’Keefe has such a target rich environment with the media. Beware the hidden camera!
melanerpes 16.03.11 @ 5:16 pm Never heard of Slade Sohmer, but will remember the name. Like I remember that burrito that gave me food poisoning five years ago in east San Jose.
Slade Sohmer 16.03.11 @ 5:52 pm A comment so nice he left it twice. I shall beware the hidden camera, thanks for the tip. I have always loved Allen Funt. So does James wear that delightful costume at all his stings? Because it might be easy to pick him out. And I’ll try to stay away from all boats. As for your comments, I have read everything you ever wrote with respect to the ACORN sting and Sherrod affair. I’ve spoken with you on the phone before and heard from you directly, specifically on the Sherrod affair and after your reward for footage of abuse with respect to the members of Congress before the health-care vote. I actually admire the fact that you constantly defend yourself, which is more than anyone can say for NPR during this latest JO’K episode. But that doesn’t mean I have to use what you say as the objective reality like talk radio and Fox News enjoy doing with your comments. Here are the facts: You personally vouched for the O’Keefe ACORN sting for months (even in print in your Washington Times column) before the house of cards collapsed. Then you said you were tricked and that there was a “discrepancy.” You can provide the “FULL AUDIO and TRANSCRIPT” after the fact all you want, but the damage had been done, and your personal crusade against a generally noble organization was successful. And for what? What was gained? As for Sherrod, I’m really not sure how on earth you can deny that the tape would be taken wildly out of context. It didn’t matter that you *thought* it was about the NAACP. You knew it was damaging to her personally. You knew there was more to the story. You carefully used the word “racist” about her personal story. Yet because you had only a selected portion of the tape that suited your needs and made someone look bad (again, for your personal agenda, this time against the NAACP), you ran with it anyway. The irony of that is that I could very easily say, like your construction of NAACP/Sherrod, that my post here “was about the Huffington Post and not Breitbart.” But I won’t. Because it was about both. I’ll stand by that. You won’t. What I don’t get is why you jumped back into bed with O’Keefe after he screwed you on the ACORN thing. Why call him a “success story” in the HuffPo after his sting had already been discredited by Glenn Beck’s The Blaze, after the CNN boat show was a total flop, after he burned you so royally on ACORN. I really just don’t get it. “What part of my narrative did you get right, you worthless and lazy partisan hack?” That’s just the point, Andrew. I, unlike your friends in the right-wing echo chamber, do not have to accept YOUR narrative at face value. As my old employer used to say, there is a “non-partisan objective reality,” and yours ain’t it. This is not a left-wing website. If anything, this site is fairly apolitical. Unlike you, I have no agenda. If I did, the top of my agenda would not be left-wing or right-wing, it would be getting people like you off my television screen and Internets. Not because I don’t like what you say. Because I don’t like the way you try to tear down institutions and people because they don’t fit your perception of the world. I’m not sure I’ve ever responded to a comment on this site before. I’ve never had to. You, on the other hand, enjoy this sort of game, this victim mentality. I’m not sure how you can stand to play defense all the time. It really must be exhausting. Responding to you has been, frankly, tiring. Oh, and what does “Ron Schiller™ elites” mean exactly? I literally have no idea what that’s supposed to signify.
Paul 16.03.11 @ 5:59 pm Who names their kid Free Pioneer? Easy to make brainless criticisms about names while you hide behind a screen of anonymity. Why not make an intelligent observation?
mrtuffstuff 16.03.11 @ 6:08 pm I believe he meant those elites who feel like any opinion contrary to their own is anti-intellectual or coming from some deep-seated, racist, gun-toting, hayseed mentality. Slade, is the Tea Party racist, yes or no? You tell me.
Slade Sohmer 16.03.11 @ 6:34 pm Breakin’ all kinds of my own rules. Like I said, I usually never comment, but since I did once, I’ll keep going. “I believe he meant those elites who feel like any opinion contrary to their own is anti-intellectual or coming from some deep-seated, racist, gun-toting, hayseed mentality.” Well then I guess he skipped over the part in which I said “The point of this is not to say that conservatives shouldn’t have a home on the Huffington Post or elsewhere in the ‘lamestream media.” They do, and they should. But what Breitbart does is in no way reputable, in no way above-board and in no way should be affiliated with anyone who wants to be taken seriously as a credible source of news and information.” I have NOTHING against conservative voices, nor conservatives. I spent seven years working for Lou Dobbs, and as I said, the last two as the EP of his radio show. I am all about discussion and debate. I’m all about hearing ideas and finding facts. Andrew Breitbart wants nothing to do with discussion and debate, nor facts. He wants to stir shit up for his own benefit. I’ve never simply dismissed an opinion contrary to my own because I don’t like someone’s beliefs. I’ll debate. I’ll counter. But I’m not an “elitist.” I only dismiss people when I think their methods are disgusting. Case in point. “Slade, is the Tea Party racist, yes or no? You tell me.” Who the hell cares what I think? Do I think the entirety of the loose-knit coalition known as the Tea Party is racist? Of course not. Do I think there are *some* elements of subconscious race-based feelings among *some* members of the Tea Party? Sure. Just as there are *some* elements of subconscious race-based guilt among *some* people on the left and in the civil rights push. There are complexities to this. There is nuance. The world is not, ahem, black and white. When I see signs like these… http://cdn1.newsone.com/files/2010/01/tea-p.jpg http://wonkette.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/racist_tea_party.jpg http://www.blueridgemuse.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/teapartyracism3.jpg http://worldwithoutracism.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/slide_1398_20072_large3.jpg …it’s hard to argue that on some level there’s NO racism among ANY members of the Tea Party. But to label the entire movement racist? Nah.
Waynester 16.03.11 @ 6:39 pm Slade Sohmer gets my vote for the leftist partisan hack in most need of a copy editor/proof reader. Do you even read the crap you write?
Waynester 16.03.11 @ 6:41 pm “Who the hell cares what I think?” Not me. I care what intelligent, thoughtful people think and you don’t qualify.
Dan Hoyle 16.03.11 @ 7:14 pm Hey Waynester, Melanerpes, Free Pioneer, et al., Try for once to debate the facts and assertions of what Slade is saying, rather than just go with the usual elite-hating trope. Are you aware that your victim’s mentality and self-pity comes across as defensive? People are turned off by Tea-partiers because they’ve created this make believe world in which they are victims of the media. But really they just have failed to grasp that 1950s America ain’t coming back, and that most people think that’s a good thing.
Paul 16.03.11 @ 7:17 pm And yet you cared enough to read his reply, and make a cry for attention by declaring how much you don’t care. Thoughtlessly typing insults will never pass for intelligent discussion.
Monk 16.03.11 @ 7:42 pm I’m pretty sure Breitbart would write and send a spittle covered rant to the parents of a 5th grader if he/she spoke ill of him. The very definition of a partisan on a warpath who cuts corners and blurs lines like so many of his ilk. It makes me laugh to see him whine when he steps on a landmine despite his profession as a mine layer. A pied piper blowing a tune to a bunch of tone deaf followers. Wake up Breitbart… you’re a fear mongering, diversionary schill helping to pull the blinds over this country.
Bobby 16.03.11 @ 10:23 pm What kind of name is Slade? That’s the argument? That’s the big comeback? I’m sure many of the Slade bashers on here have been to Big Government and several of the other websites Andrew runs and I’ll be damned if I don’t see loads of racist and bigoted comments about President Obama and the First Lady. I also see the same ridiculous, regurgitated birth certificate garbage over and over. Why do you think Shirley Sherrod went after Andrew if his video was only about the NAACP? She knew, just like everyone else, what his full intent was. James O’Keefe’s own colleague was the one who turned his miserable carcass in after he tried to dupe a CNN employee to sleep with him. He also broke into the office of a Senator, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges that consisted of entering federal property under false pretenses. O’Keefe and his accomplices infiltrated Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office in an attempt to wiretap her phones. James O’Keefe isn’t Daniel Ellsberg. I love the weak and pathetic attempts from people like Andrew and others from the right, including some of you who posted that say “the lamestream media runs everything.” Really? Radio is dominated by who? Rush, Beck, Hannity, Ingraham etc…What happened to Air America if the lamestream media runs everything? I’d say radio is dominated by the right. Ah but television MUST be a liberal organization, no? Gee, what’s the number one rated news outlet on television by far? Oh, Fox? That’s two for the right. Internet? Drudgereport? Any of Andrew’s own pages? The right has just as many pages as the left and arguably the number one site in Drudge. So that is right. And print? That I would grant the right, leans left. But that’s it. 75% of our “lamestream media” is dominated by the right yet you have this asinine victims mentality that the entire world is out to get you and drown out your voices. Your first Amendment rights are in danger…on and on and on…. EVERYONE’s voice should be welcome in an open and free society but there are just as many people on the right who want the left shut up and want to take away their right to say what they feel. If Slade survived SEVEN years with Lou Dobbs as a liberal, communist, pinko, puke, he must be a pretty god damn fair guy to last that long. I would guarantee that Lou would not keep ANYONE for that long if they weren’t the f*cking man at their job and fair in their thinking.
Djmcs11 17.03.11 @ 12:30 am “…but I wanted to give a little perspective to those Huffington Post readers — whatever your political stripe — who share my passion for free speech, honest debate, and fairness in the media.” I absolutely refuse to believe that Breitbart didn’t write this and then cackle madly while spinning in his chair. In his HuffPo piece Breitbart expects us to believe that the perceived lack of a decent defense by NPR and some of its employees was part of a grand cover-up to enable the “main stream media” to continue its alleged anti-Tea Party agenda. This kind of logical leap can only make sense to the most paranoid of grand conspiracists. Who are the conspirators? Presumably the entire band of “MSM” chiefs. Laughable and deranged. Not content to take whatever value there may be in the NPR sting perpetrated by convicted criminal O’Keefe, Andy tries to weave a bizarre and demented web that includes any that would dare to question Andy’s motives, methods, and “journalism”. This kind of “opinion” can’t possibly be taken seriously.
Djmcs11 17.03.11 @ 12:38 am Yes. Breitbart was on with Piers on CNN. Dana Loesch,another of Andy’s disciples (free from arrest so far), was on Maher’s show again. There is no way that these kind of amateurish, fear-mongering, and sensationalistic clownshoes would normally get any play away from the street corners where their predecessors used to be confined. But now, cravenly, and clearly for ratings only, some outlets allow them on. By providing these platforms for the likes of Breitbart doesn’t this coverage directly contradict Andy’s assertion in the HuffPo piece (and everywhere else) that the left and the MSM’s “goal isn’t to report the truth but to decide what it will be, and who’s allowed to tell it.”?
glaser 17.03.11 @ 10:28 am How do we even know that this reply is coming from Breitbart? His comment reads like a jilted 10th grade girl, who just found out that the popular Senior boys think her best friend has bad breath. Looks more to me like some intern who is paid (but probably not actually *paid*) to attack anyone who dares write a bad comment about this fatso. Uh oh, I just did it too…
Herpanoma 17.03.11 @ 10:55 am Melanerpes, I think the burrito gave you something else. Perhaps a combination of Melanoma and Herpes.
Jim Treacher 19.03.11 @ 12:55 am “Discredited!” “Debunked!” “Selectively edited!” Let’s use words like magic talismans to ward off reality. Let’s comfort ourselves that this isn’t really happened. After all, we’re the good guys, aren’t we? Aren’t we?
Jim Treacher 19.03.11 @ 12:56 am Or happening, either one. “The comment so nice he left it twice!” Good stuff.
Bob Moses 24.03.11 @ 8:12 am Spare us your false claims that you are not a partisan. HuffPost has had flamethrowers and outright liars on there for years. You are just mad that an effective conservative is going to be a regular on the site. I’ve never heard of you or your site before. It seems that you offer up undifferentiated partisan dreck with a side of self-delusion about the nature of that blatant partisanship. You would have been a great fit in Dan Rather’s CBS news organization. Enjoy your 10 seconds of fame. It is almost over.