It’s amazing. The big media types all jumped on that ACORN video earlier this year, despite it being edited to be taken totally out of context. Now we this story of Shirley Sherrod, someone who has lost their job due to the journalistic malpractice of one Andrew Breitbart.
Over at the San Francisco Chronicle, a strong case is made to bring Breitbart to justice over this:
While he says he intended to harm the NAACP, he picked Shirley Sherrod to do it. She did not ask for this. Breitbart altered a video to twist her words.
Andrew Breitbart may be a target for the U.S. Department of Justice’ Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section (“CCIPS”) which is in the Criminal Division. The website, which was forwarded to this blogger by the DOJ on another issue, covers various types of crimes that involve a computer.
If Breitbart altered the video of Shirley Sherrod to make it look like she was making a statement he then called racist, he’s certainly guilty of defamation of character against Shirley Sherrod.
Breitbart may also be guilty of Internet harassment. He certainly should be made a high-profile example to discourage others from these uses of the computer and The Internet to harass a person. Enough is enough.
There have been cases against internet commenters, let alone the publisher of an internet “news” site.
If in the “new media” age we want to be treated the same as traditional media, then all bloggers should get behind any legal action against Andrew Breitbart. He hurts the blogosphere as a whole by his intentional lies and smears published on his sites. Sure the left and right blogosphere disagree and they must to thrive, but to resort to such lying in order to advance an agenda and your own site; well that is unacceptable no matter if you are the most liberal or conservative of blogger.
And finally – will this be the big wake up call for the news outlets to stop treating Breitbart as some sort of “news source”? If they continue to do so after this incident then they are just as wrong as Breitbart himself.