Motley Moose – Archive

Since 2008 – Progress Through Politics

Huffpo Sherroded Me

I was asked by the Huffinton Post during the Primary Campaign to follow Hillary Clinton on the west coast–using my own dime–since this is when Huffpo was promoting ‘citizen journalism’– and write stories demonstrating she was a liar by writing that in different places she slanted her message to the audience.

Huffpo is screaming NoNoNo this morning at Jim VandeHai of Politico who yesterday asserted that the HuffingtonPost trained Andrew Bretibart, the guy  who recently slimed Shirley Sherrod and suckered the Obama Adminstration into firing her from her job.

So Politico’s VandeHai is asserting that the Huffington Post uses Breitbart methods of distorting and slanting the news.

Is there anyone who things otherwise? Fox is the conservative shoutfest, Huffpo the liberal fog machine. And both slant, distort and sensationalize the shortcomings of those they oppose

News? It is Gone With The Wind.

Take the facts and distort them to fit the agenda is what is passing for news today and the blogosphere is no exception.  During the primary campaign Huffpo offered me the job of covering Hillary Clinton on the west coast. I was to travel around, on my own dime–this was when Huffpo was promoting “citizen journalism”–and write up her campaign appearances. But there was an agenda: I was to catch her lying, i.e. giving different messages according to the different locations.

I supported Hillary, part of a  small band of liberal bloggers who did, and I refused the agenda. And Huffpo no longer cared for my services.

So I wrote for dKos until I was thrown off for being a “racist” which is to say that I talked about Obama’s shortcomings. During the primary campaign anyone who blogged for Hillary was ipso facto a racist on most of the liberal blogs.

It wasn’t a fair fight. And much like Journolist, the liberal blogging forces schemed to put their guy over. Part of this effort was to brand as racist anyone effective enough to make a dent in Obama’s pristine reputation.

Peter Daou may be the only prominent Hillary blogger who escaped unscathed, and I am not even sure that is true.

What the Shirley Sherrod “moment” offers is a peek into a shoddy and corrupt practice of smears and innuendo passed off as news by nearly everyone in today’s media. No one is exempt. Fox does it brilliantly. And the liberal organizations are playing catch up as fast as they can.

Hold onto your critical faculties. Take nothing at face value or should I say first read. And look for the agenda in Everything. It is always there.    


Categories: Uncategorized.

/ 117 Comments

117 comments

  1. Peter Jukes

    But I did see several exchanges on MYDD. I’ve written about this elsewhere, but the sexism/racism issue was so highly charged that it was easy for supporters of Obama to hear racism where none was intended or present, and supporters of Hilary to hear sexism where none was intended or present.

    Add to that the prolonged stress of the primaries, the inability to impute ‘tone’ on blogs, and the slips of the tongue we all make, then offence was thrown around (on all sides it seems to be) pretty comprehensively.

    Though it was Pro Obama site, I was never a great fan of Huff Po and particularly suspicious of Arianna, who I remember from my youth as a conservative commentator in the UK.

    You’re right the news standards, the desire for outrage and expose, have accelerated to the point that it might take a major tragedy or disaster for Faux and its online equivalents to act with any responsibility.

    I won’t hold my breath.

    In the meantime innocent people get shredded by the system.  

  2. linfar

    Longtime no see.

    Louis I have not posted this before thinking it would be just laughed at or made fun of. And voila!

    But since we were in the trenches together I forgive yu.

    And I have to say that as a journalist trained back in the day of Cronkite, the huffpo request  was a serious breach of journalism ethics.

    But now it is simply considered the norm. There can be no democracy without unbiased information delivered to the  electorate ina timely manner.

    All of us who blogged for Hill found out at great cost that this idea had gone the way of the dodo.

  3. HappyinVT

    And much like Journolist, the liberal blogging forces schemed to put their guy over. Part of this effort was to brand as racist anyone effective enough to make a dent in Obama’s pristine reputation.

    I was an Obama supporter long before I ever heard of a blogosphere, liberal or otherwise, FWIW.  I’d also suggest that the liberal blogosphere has largely done a good job of turning on that guy it helped get elected.

    I will agree, however, that smears and innuendo are definitely passed off as news and too many are willing to buy into a narrative, particularly when it fits their preconcieved notions.

  5. Rashaverak

    According to the diarist, she, “… was asked by the Huffinton Post during the Primary Campaign to follow Hillary Clinton on the west coast–using my own dime–since this is when Huffpo was promoting ‘citizen journalism’– and write stories demonstrating she was a liar by writing that in different places she slanted her message to the audience.”

    However, the diarist had ardently championed HRC’s candidacy at Daily Kos and elsewhere.  She also wanted to blog for HRC, but got the impression that Bloggers for Hillary was, “… a closed club.”

    http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

    Why would A even bother to ask B, who had been outspokenly championing candidate C, to shadow C and try to dig up dirt on C?

  6. Rashaverak

    http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

    Some black leaders are questioning Mr. Obama’s decision to distance his campaign from Mr. Wright because of the campaign’s apparent fear of criticism over Mr. Wright’s teachings, which some say are overly Afrocentric to the point of excluding whites.

    But afrocentric is only part of the problem. [….]”

    ============

    http://www.dailykos.com/commen…

    facts are something obama supporters just hate (0+ / 6-)

    by linfar on Tue Jan 15, 2008 at 09:58:17 PM UTC

    ================

    Now, the diarist comes to the peaceable place, complaining of her allegedly shoddy treatment by HuffPo two and a half years ago, dredging up the primary wars, portraying herself as one of the casualties of said wars, and decrying Teh Death of Journalism.

    Is there anyone who things otherwise? Fox is the conservative shoutfest, Huffpo the liberal fog machine. And both slant, distort and sensationalize the shortcomings of those they oppose[.]

    [….]

    Take the facts and distort them to fit the agenda is what is passing for news today and the blogosphere is no exception.

    [….]

    What the Shirley Sherrod “moment” offers is a peek into a shoddy and corrupt practice of smears and innuendo passed off as news by nearly everyone in today’s media. No one is exempt. Fox does it brilliantly. And the liberal organizations are playing catch up as fast as they can.

    Ms. Farley, here’s a mirror.  Take a deep look into it, and see if you recognize yourself.

    Hold onto your critical faculties. Take nothing at face value or should I say first read. And look for the agenda in Everything. It is always there.

    Indeed.

  8. linfar

    Thanks for the laughs! I know yu by many other names. Why not tell us who you really are? And yes, I hit Obama as hard as I knew how when I blogged for Hill. But I never lied or made up facts. I certainly also let my bias be known. I must say I am disheartened to find you blogging here. How do yu do it? Genuinely curious here. Do you have some sort of finder so that if linfar blogs somewhere yu can turn up and drag out the slime machine? As for shuck and jive–many others used it without a shred of racism intended. And I still think he shucked and jived his way through the primary–shuck and jive meaning he dissembled–a definition now accepted for the phrase in everyday usage. Got it? As I said during the primary wars, I will put my own fight against racism as a white person up against anyone, anywhere and anytime. But it sure was and is an effective way to shut people up and an acknowledged Obama campaign tactic. Never before in the history of American politics have so many been called racist by so few–oh, yeah,let’s not forget sliming the Clintons that way. What I consider the upside of your ravings here is that i sure did something right for yu to be carrying this sort of grudge–oh, I mean drudge

  9. linfar

    Hi, and thanks for letting me in on the word war with brit. And also for the enclouragement.

    Posting lost a lot of umph for me after my Mom died. But I also couldn’t deal with all the slming after Hill lost the primary. It was like my armor and willingness to subject myself to it just dissipated.

  10. linfar

    You are like Breitbart et al. You want to shut up those with whom you disagree by selective quotes and selective hits. Why not quotes from Mydd? I posted here far longer than I did at dkos? And I made many friends there.

    This new way of blogging and the new way of journalism is anathema to me. It is vicious, selective and there is nothing to learn or be gained. I love a good debate–about facts and issues and beliefs. But I am not sure you and your cohorts have any real beliefs or even opinions. What you know how to do is demean and smear and lie by innuendo and selective hits. Racism was a great smear tactic.

    But I am an effective scribbler and I just kept going. Sometimes I felt like the Energizer Bunny. And I  made questioning and issue-oriented posts about Obama my mission. And I genuinely opposed his nomination.  It isn’t only that I liked Hillary better. I thought Obama was Fools Gold from the beginning. He is part of the Chicago machine only new style. Ok. I am not going there. All I can say at this point in his Prsidency is that we needed a Roosevelt and we got a jerk. [I am sure if you search hard enough yu could find a racist usage of the word jerk–or better still some way to make using the word jerk an indictment of the writer’s character.]

    So Rash yu only embarrass yourself. You attack character and you smear and you lie and you are like Fox News you always slide off the hit and turn it around. So that people rarely say, “Cut the slime machine, willya?”

    What remains unutterably sad to me is the way this mediium is being hijacked by your sort, i.e.this website was begun in part to get away from this kind of slimefest trashola.

    And here yu are. Calling me a liar–about my own life. About something painful and hard.

    The entire blogosphere–with few exceptions–is patterened on Fox–including you.

    And the truth is whoever yu are, yu are the problem.  

  11. linfar

    This is another gambit in the innuendo, smear strategem. Deliberately misunderstand what the writer is saying. So now I am told I am comparing myself  to Shirley Sherrod. NOT. I wrote a little piece, quite badly oen graph repeats itself, to show how the media encourages Breitbart-itis. These are the pts. of the diary: Breitbart was trained at Huffpo. And I was approached by Huffpo to write about Clinton. Left out of diary–I was thrilled. Until I was given an agenda. They didn’t want unbiased info pieces on her speeches, and public appearances. They wanted hit pieces totally oriented to how she was a liar based on how she was changing what she was saying depending upon audience and place. When I argued that all politicians do that, the editor explained this was true but since undermining  her candidacy was the point, this was a good way to do it. And it would make for good reading. I said this wasn’t the kind of journalism I believed in, moreover  I supported her candidacy and I  refused. They found someone else. I moved on. Found a home at mydd and wrote pretty much what I pleased. But when the Sherrod info came to light I realized that Huffpo must have been approaching a lot of people in the same way. I had thought it was limited to Clinton. My background is with the AP–I was trained to be objective in news coverage and less restrained in opinion pieces. I had a strong opinion in favor of Clinton. And I think with the advantage of hindsight that the overwhelming bias in the blogosphere in favor of Obama incensed me and I wrote pieces as hard as I could.

    And now I will close with this. I find it outlandish that people I know for years through mydd and this site, are not calling this diarist [for lack of a better word] on his bullshit. I fought the primary war and slogged through slime until I was ill. Andrew Davey and Psychodrew and I founded clintonistas for obama. Founders of this site also know me and my writing. So if you think I am going to roll over while this creepio calls me a liar, you don’t know me, you don’t know what I stood for and you are so busy making nice you enable the sort of slime this guy is dishing out.

    And if you look at what has been written in this thread. One person is sliming, using character assassination and all the rest. And one person is not.

    Now please tell the other guy to desist.

  13. sricki

    This whole page reads like something meticulously choreographed by Jerome sometime mid-March 2008 to drive up (z0mg!) page hits.

    Like. Srsly? I am honestly a little floored to see this kind of thing on my sweet little purple online hidey-hole in 2010. Not sure what my thoughts are on it right now, or whether it’s worth engaging further. I need to think about this. Hell, I mean, in fact, I even need to think about whether I should bother thinking about this… or returning to this thread at all. (Though, trainwreck that it is, I don’t know that my bored, Alabama-midsummer-heat-addled brain will be able to turn away.)

  14. linfar

    It was a nothing little diary, not well written and just “meh” as some have said. And I think the headline I put on it was confusing. I was after the point that I waa asked to sherrod someone. But I didn’t commmunicate that accurately. I bothered to do the diary at all because it was important to me to share that what was done to Shirley Sherrod I was asked to do to Hillary Clinton–take her out of context, find discrepancies, pick through her speeches for places to accuse her of lying. I was not misintrepreting what was being asked, I argued about it. I objected and nobody much gave a rat’s ass. They wanted to smear Clinton. Breitbart worked for Huffpo. This is the new journalism. And so I put my little incident out there. Journalism is so corrupted at every level that it must be exposed wherever and however. I truly do not understand the uproar. I was not comparing myself to Shirley Sherrod. I was saying that I had been asked to slime Clinton in a similar manner. I thought talking about the behavior was important.  As for shuck and jive and all the accustations of racism that came my way during the primaries. We will just have to agree to disagree. I did not use shuck and jive with some subterranean subtext of racism. I used it in the way it is defined in Webster–as dissembling. Way, way down in Webster there is an historical reference that involves race. The indignation about  my using the phrase has always seemed to me a bit suspect–in the sense that racism is in the mind of the reader. It never even crossed my mind in using the phrase. Since it had never been my intention, etc. I defended the use of the phrase. There were so many incidents like this to so many including officials and the Clintons themselves during the primaries. The Obama campaign finally admitted it used accusations of racism in language as a political strategem–puleeze do not debate this because  it has been admitted and affirmed by that campaign on several occasions– Finally, I don’t think it was ever understood that Obama for me was never a black man running for office. I just wasn’t focused on race. In my life I have not been separated from others because of race, that is I have lived in a mostly integrated personal world, and it just ceased to be salient. What was salient for me was sex. And sexism.  I wanted the woman. I wanted to see a first woman president. That’s all. But I do think it was extraordinarily destructive to make accusations of racism a campaign tactic and to lash well meaning people with accusations of racism. In this sense in my opinion Obama ran one of the dirtiest campaigns. He used race divisively and destructively. As a campaign tool. And kysen. I must say. I am surprised. What on earth? I am toodling off now shaking my head. My little toe in the water here was not anything I would care to repeat so you are all safe from any other posts from yours truly. I mean seriously, who needs this? This place I thought was founded to promote civil discourse and discussion of ideas. One little rag tag diary is all it took to unleash the hounds. Sometimes people just aren’t at the top of their form–and a little forbearance is probably the way to keep people writing. I wish you all well.

  16. canadian gal

    after reading neci’s comments and thinking about the diary, like louis –  i’ve realized why this diary is so offensive. to rash et al – i apologize. you were right and i wrong.

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