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.
The barriers erected by prejudice always amaze me, after they are gone. I have fought for women’s rights, for civil rights for blacks and for gay rights. But it is the latter which has claimed my greatest outrage. I think it is because I have been more seriously threatened as a gay person-as a lesbian.