Pimps, Lies, and Videotapes

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/03 ... art-videos
Pimps, Lies, and Videotapes
Inside Andrew Breitbart's and James O'Keefe's right-wing video fantasy factory.
— By Dave Gilson
Thu Mar. 31, 2011

Ever since ACORN was taken down by a bad pimp costume and a hidden camera, right-wing media mogul Andrew Breitbart and provocateur James O'Keefe have discovered that by the time their work is exposed as disingenuously edited hit jobs, the damage is done, and their brand has been boosted. As Breitbart told the AP, http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=11317888&page=2 "I'm committed to the destruction of the old media guard. And it's a very good business model." Below, their stings to date.

(see article for table)

http://motherjones.com/media/2011/03/ja ... ed-nabbous
Why Do We Keep Falling For O'Keefe's Smear Jobs?
It took days for someone to factcheck the NPR "sting"—and then the job fell to Glenn Beck's (!!) site.
— By Monika Bauerlein and Clara Jeffery
Mon Mar. 28, 2011

The real scandal is that—even though by the time he posted a "sting" of a top NPR fundraiser, O'Keefe was notorious for creating deceptive video smear jobs (ACORN? Hello?)—the media repeated the allegations uncritically. Let's review.

O'Keefe's "scoop" debuted March 8 on the conservative Daily Caller. Edited down from a 2-hour conversation, the 12-minute clip purports to show NPR head fundraiser Ron Schiller wooing fake prospective donors who claimed to be part of a group with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. To curry favor, Schiller slags tea partiers, calling them xenophobic and racist; he also says NPR could get by without federal funding.

It wasn't until March 10 that an article on Glenn Beck's (!!) site, the Blaze, http://www.theblaze.com/stories/does-ra ... g-tactics/ reviewed the full tape http://www.theprojectveritas.org/nprjudge (which O'Keefe had posted online—guessing, correctly, that reporters wouldn't bother to watch it) and found massive deceptive editing. Schiller, it turned out, prefaced his comments by saying he was proud of having been raised a Republican; in saying tea partiers were racist, he was paraphrasing other GOPers; a laughing "That's what they said?" referring to a restaurant was moved to suggest that he was making light of the fake group's commitment to sharia.

By the time the Blaze's critique made its way around the internet, though, half the press corps—including many media critics—was headed to the SXSW convention in Austin, and the other half was busy with disasters in Japan and uprisings in the Middle East. Why was this? Simple: A good lie is by definition a hot story—crafted and timed to hit an urgent issue at just the right moment—and in a 24/7 news cycle, that presents a compelling incentive to reporters: "Let's be brutally honest," Weigel told NPR when it finally got around to forensics six days later. "The rush is to get traffic and to get the people of your organization booked on shows to talk about it. [That] leads you to not do the rigor and fact-checking that you do in other situations." And by the time you do, everyone's moved on.

For those of you who follow The Blaze, and Glenn Back, does this story make it more credible to you that O'Keefe's tactics can't be trusted and that all the previous stings that he's conducted that you may have touted as true aren't worthy of any credibility, or repetition?

TPP wrote: O I thought this was going to be vl bio.






BTW, mother jones come-on, you're smarter than that....

Explain to me what's wrong with Mother Jones, please TPP. I use them for a lot of my environmental stuff, but did you know that just a couple of days ago, they posted a story about Solar Death Panels? http://motherjones.com/environment/2011 ... ise-mojave In it, this often pro-environmental site said this:

"We've been supportive of efforts to accelerate clean-energy projects," says Jim Lyons, who studies renewable energy at the conservation nonprofit Defenders of Wildlife. "But the scale of these new projects is massive, and they could be enormously destructive to plants and animals." The trick, Loarie says, is to figure out how to build renewable-energy projects while inflicting minimal damage on the landscape."

No rah-rah "Go Solar!", but a rational viewpoint of considering the ramifications of installing renewable energy production. They cover both sides of an issue, yes more left than right, but they aren't mindless shills like many others, bought off by corporate interests.

So what about The Blaze's story? Glenn Beck's own site admits that this video grossly misrepresents Schiller - are they liberally biased now too? lol

SS109, it's knee-jerk reaction to fire them, just like the sloppy fact-checking that Weigel admitted to. Look what happened with Sherrod - she got an apology from the president once the facts finally came out. I will say this once again - the media isn't about presenting the objective facts, they are about getting ratings, even if that means an inflammatory story that's full of holes, lies, cherry-picking, and misrepresentations.

Off topic, this is why I like sites like 285Bound - because we can fact-check each other's stories and maybe find the way to the truth after filtering through all the crap between "right-wing" and "left-wing" biased stories. There is no good, fully objective, completely unbiased, big-picture perspective news organization out there - it's up to us to compare our sources and analyze for ourselves what the real message/info is. It takes more effort, but it's worth it and essential for a democracy to function - well-informed citizens are a must. You may not know this, but I appreciate all (well, almost all!) of the stuff that everyone posts here - it exposes me to viewpoints that I wouldn't normally seek out on my own and improves my perspective and understanding, whether I agree with it or not. So thank you.

But do you guys see my point - some of you jump on this crap and tout it as "truth", or get all worked up over it, before waiting for the investigations to be thoroughly completed. If you practice some patience, then what you post is a lot more credible and you'll be able to convince more people that your viewpoint is worth considering, especially if you can back it up with a logical argument. (not trying to sound preachy here, because, yes, I expect that my stuff should be looked at critically, and questioned, too). My PSA for the day!

TPP - if you read the Solar Death panels article, they discuss the problems with relocating the turtles, especially in regards to the massive amounts of land that are projected to be used for solar panels.

What truth are you talking about? Do you mean that you agree that these videos have been misrepresented about PP, NPR, ACORN, et al and people are grossly negligent in perpetuating these stories? Or do you mean truth just in general, and you're not taking a stand about these videos?

I agree that many environmentalist groups are hypocrites, but that's not the issue here - it's the perpetuation of lies by our media, and people getting in hysterics over lies that they don't bother checking out first. Or admitting that they were wrong after the truth is brought to light.