The Shirley Sherrod fiasco

I'm surprised there's so few (read: none, as of this writing) opinions on this, as it certainly looks like one of the great multi-level accountability failures of our time. Or at least, my time.

The blogger himself, well...what can you say. For some peculiar reason, I want to cut them the greatest amount of slack, even as the origin of the problem. Nutjobs will always exist, but this was so pedestrian; no one runs with an unverified Internet blog as a copy/paste news story, do they? Of course not.

The hypocrisy of certain media outlets that basically ran this story non-stop in its original damning sense, and then disparaging The Administration's rush to judgment is typically laughable. As in, I-want-to-punch-someone laughable.

And The Administration themselves. Wow. What a complete act of cowardice, pandering to, ahem, the media and its sensational claims without doing its own fact-checking. Yeah, I realize there's some egg-shell walking to be done when you're the first minority to be President; but its time to use that opportunity to be the standard-bearer and do what's right, instead of doing what will placate. It's akin to watching your Dad get beat up by a bully, and then apologizing to him for bloodying his fist. No matter how much we may hate the guys in charge in Washington, we still need/want them to be a role model. That despite everyone's squawking about taxes, health care, Iraq, or whatever, that they have a firm grasp on the nuts and bolts of the essentials of basic social ills, and that they are still a battle worth fighting.

How incredibly disappointing that this whole debacle was even possible.

I just read a few articles from the link you posted. I have to say this being the first time Im hearing about this Im quite ashamed at the way it was handled. Since when is a random video posted on the web a credible source right off the bat? I would think that after some investigation it would be determined if it was worth something to run with or if it should be thrown in the trash pile. I honestly dont know what really happened but based on the articles Ive read that woman was put in a horrible position by crappy people trying to ruin an organization that I dont even believe is directly associated with the dept of ag. Did they just feel the need to run with something like that because shes a black woman who had the authority to 'pick and choose' who she helped, all just to show that a black person could be racist too?
Im sorry but if someone tells me that there is a whole race who does not have one single racist person among the whole is a liar! Regardless if they are black white purple or little green men from mars...There is bound to be atleast one person in that race that has ill feelings towards another race. Not any race and not any person is perfect and I feel quite badly for this woman to be singled out by some moron who wanted to discredit an entirely seperate group.

It looks as though Breitbart was set up (but will we ever know for sure?), and, if so, he was the first in a long line of victims in this case.

And Ms. Sherrod herself has, I think, put her finger on the truth: When the NAACP passed their resolution about the Tea Party, they were asking for exactly this outcome. And, as she also pointed out, the NAACP had the original tape and could have stopped the whole thing in its tracks, but instead condemned her without doing any fact-checking.

But I DO think it's important to point out that no news program on Fox News carried the video or even mentioned it. Glen Beck, the bete noire of the left, didn't carry it, even though the person who asked Ms. Sherrod to resign (allegedly Cheryl Cook) told her that the video was going to be a major item on Beck's show.

To agree with Ms. Sherrod that this whole thing can be a "teachable moment" is to understate it immensely. At this point, I'd have to say that Fox News (not the commentary people, mind you) is one bright light in this otherwise sordid tale, because although they knew about the video, they did not play it or mention it. Everyone else, from the White House on down to the NAACP, has plenty to be ashamed of.

Perhaps I'm missing the boat as to what you're implying here, but for the record, Fox News categorized Ms. Sherrod's speech as "Racist", both in print (via their "ticker" graphic) and in live video by their news analysts.

Let's be real: ANYONE that initially reported this as a news story got it wrong, because, well...that's what made it news: A provocative, fraudulent claim.

Indeed, the NAACP's reaction was as disgusting as anyone's.

I watched about 2 hours of news coverage yesterday about how Fox picked up this story and blasted all over the air most of the day on Tuesday. O'Reilly carried it first, then other Fox "news" shows. Then on Wednesday, they blasted the administration for reacting to a story without checking out the facts. It was the most blatant hypocrisy that I've witnessed in a very long time.

CNN set the record straight yesterday when they aired the full 10 minutes of Sherrod's speech. Talk about Fox taking it completely out of context.

I wasn't watching the news. But I DO know that the Fox news programs said they didn't even mention it until they had seen the whole video, because it looked fishy to them.

O'Reilly, et al, DID mention it Monday evening. But not Beck, and not the news programming.

And others have noted that Fox was unfairly blamed in the whole matter, since Sherrod had already resigned before the tape was ever played.

Howard Kurtz

All you need to do is google Fox coverage of Sherrod and you'll see a long list of articles that blasts Fox for jumping the gun on their coverage.

I find it almost amusing that Fox is now denying that they mentioned it in the first place. They've just confirmed their nickname of "Faux News".

You know, if the media repeats something enough times, people begin to believe them. Now Fox is a master of that game.

I caught some of the MSNBC shows last night, and they were showing clips of the Fox shows ranting about the video, and yes they showed it. Then the next night they were complaining that the administration jumped the gun in firing her. I mean, the same people who were calling for her head the night before. I don't watch Fox, and I realize that MSNBC is slanted left, but I don't think those clips from the shows were fake. Maybe Beck didn't cover it, but there were others who did.

OK, one more time. The news shows didn't carry it, but the commentary shows, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, and Greta's shows did.

O'Reilly's show is taped at 5 p.m., so he had no way of knowing she'd already resigned when his show aired. And he has since apologized for showing it without finding the context.

But let's take a purely Machiavellian look at this.

Where did the clip come from? The original was in the possession of the NAACP. Did someone there alter it and forward it to Breitbart? What would they gain from it? A big embarrassment and discreditation of him, for a starter. An embarrassment for Fox, who they knew would get it. What else?

This will make Fox more leery of Breitbart than they already were. Call it some revenge for the ACORN deal. So Ms. Sherrod gets hurt in the deal, and the NAACP has a brief embarrassment. Was it worth the price?

And Ms. Sherrod has said she's not going to accept her job back. Why? Probably because she figures she will end up getting a much bigger settlement than what her salary would be from now until her retirement. I suspect she's right. If I heard correctly, she already received $300,000 in the big settlement with black farmers over admittedly racist treatment from the Department of Agriculture in the past.

And just by the by, MSNBC doesn't just lean left. They are avowedly left. Try to find conservatives there, like there are on Fox. You won't. If they would learn the same lesson about Michael Moore and the rest of the journalists on Journolist that Fox may be presumed to have learned about Breitbart, all of journalism would be a better place.

And here's a pretty good editorial on the subject, by Juan Williams:

Race, Lies, and Videotape

I have to say that I've missed most of this one. We had a name for it in the Marine Corps, that I can't use here. Watch "Heartbreak Ridge", and you'll hear Clint Eastwood use it a couple times.

But, the reason for my reply is...how do you know that the video was edited before the blogger got it?

We don't know that. But ask yourself...where did HE get it? It was in the sole possession of the NAACP, so far as I know.

A very good analysis:

Sherrod coverage

Gee, I dunno... What makes you qualified to judge it any better than I? Do you have a better analysis? Can you back it up?

And have I ever called anything you wrote here by any such name?

Back what up? That the entire thing was a cluster from the very beginning? I thought that was pretty evident.

The only reason, as I said before, that I quoted your post was to ask why you would think the video was edited before he got it, rather than after? It sounds like Fox News damage control to me, i.e. "Our source was framed, therefore, we were framed!...NOT our fault!"

If the NAACP had sole possession of the video, why did they have to obtain it later to put it into context?

What makes you think he didn't create it himself from the complete video.

Exactly how was the clip edited, other then it just being a clip that was taken out of context? Was there a Michael Moore thing going on with sentences edited together to make her say something she didn't say?

To me what was more upsetting then what she said she did, was the audience's reaction.

It was a total cluster from beginning to end. But things like this are going to happen over and over. If the left keeps pounding away with their incorrect racism claims the right is going to start fighting back.

We don't know yet, do we? It's clear he waited for his moment, since, as I hear it, he had the video clip since March. In that amount of time, he certainly had ample opportunity to check out the whole thing, but, maybe, like most journalists these days, the clip just confirmed what he already believed.

As I said, I doubt Fox news (or the White House) will take anything he has at face value for quite a while.

Oh...that quote about being framed up there...Was that your impression of Dan Rather, or what?

[quote=mrblanche;2905191]
And just by the by, MSNBC doesn't just lean left. They are avowedly left. Try to find conservatives there, like there are on Fox. You won't. If they would learn the same lesson about Michael Moore and the rest of the journalists on Journolist that Fox may be presumed to have learned about Breitbart, all of journalism would be a better place.[/QUOT

I have definitely seen conservatives on MSNBC, and I've heard Rachel Maddow invite any number of them to appear on her show. At one time, one of them was a regular contributor (sorry, the name is escaping me).

But Fox has a large number of liberals working for them, including such people as Juan Williams, Alan Colmes, Bob Bechtel, and many others. Bill O'Reilly has liberals on all the time, and has standing invitations for the President, Vice-President, and many others. Hillary Clinton said that Fox actually treated her more fairly than any other outlets. I believe Greta is a registered Democrat, and O'Reilly is an independent who gave Dick Cheney and many others in the Bush administration real grief.

I personally don't like their news operation, but it's mainly an issue of perception (I find them to be noisy and overly busy), not performance.

And did you read the analysis of the Sherrod issue I linked to? It pointed out that CNN had almost twice as many reports on the subject as FOX did, and MSNBC was just a little behind Fox.

No, we don't know. Which means, we're free to throw on whatever conspiracy theory we want. We could also look at Fox news supplying him with an soundbite clip through a proxy, just so they could let some of their people "chastise their own network" for being too hasty as a credibility boost. Or, that she did it herself in order to be able to sue everyone. Or, this, that, the other. I'm sure there are almost as many theories as there are bloggers.

What a deer in the headlights looks like.

This is a good example of the smear campaign against Fox News, and Howard Dean getting caught in it. Notice how he never really catches on to the fact that he was completely wrong.

Chris Wallace with Howard Dean

And I think Breitbart will either take a shellacking, or his accusers will. I certainly think that his actions were irresponsible, but it may be (and I hope any lawsuit would reveal it) that he was also a victim. A willing victim, perhaps, and certainly very vulnerable to the deception, if it was such. If it turns out he did the editing (which was mainly just running a short clip, rather than the whole thing), then I'm sure his credibility will be seriously damaged.

But Ms. Sherrod has been very free with the accusation of racism, which is hurting her credibility, too.