USA Today's Rick Hampson has a piece today (12/7/11) on Occupy Wall Street's Occupy Our Homes actions, which include efforts to move families into vacant housing. This coverage is a good sign if you think there is still something happening with this movement after the evictions in New York, Los Angeles and elsewhere.

But why does the article include commentary from right-wing scam artist Andrew Breitbart? The paper reports:

Conservative online publisher and commentator Andrew Breitbart said the movement's new focus demonstrates that Occupy Wall Street is not "an authentic grassroots movement" but a political maneuver backed by organized labor and remnants of the ACORN community-organizing group aimed at boosting President Obama's re-election campaign.

"This is AstroTurf" rather than grassroots, he said. "This isn't about helping little old ladies.… This is about fomenting civil unrest, fomenting class warfare."

Breitbart's work is totally unreliable. He's been sounding the ACORN/SEIU alarms about Occupy Wall Street almost from the beginning--just like (at least) one Fox News host. The point is to try and link the movement to an array of progressive institutions and, apparently, the Obama campaign. It's nonsensical paranoia. Is he included for the sake of "balance"?

Jesse Jackson had some tough criticism for the Tea Party movement at a Martin Luther King event on Thursday. USA Today's Melanie Eversley  covered his remarks, getting a Tea Party activist to respond to his criticism. The piece then added this, presumably in order to add some context:

The group has faced criticism of being a racist group, a claim made most visibly by former National Public Radio fundraiser Ron Schiller, who was caught on hidden camera calling the group racist and xenophobic, prompting his immediate resignation.

In other words, lots of people seem to hurl accusations of racism at the Tea Party, right? One tiny problem: Schiller didn't actually say that--he said that was what some Republicans were saying about the Tea Party. NPR's David Folkenflik (among others) pointed out that the video--released by right-wing hoaxer James O'Keefe--was edited in order to make a totally misleading impression:

in the shorter tape, Schiller is also presented as saying the GOP has been "hijacked" by Tea Partyers and xenophobes.

In the longer tape, it's evident Schiller is not giving his own views but instead quoting two influential Republicans--one an ambassador, another a senior Republican donor. Schiller notably does not take issue with their conclusions--but they are not his own.

This is the problem with the O'Keefe/Andrew Breitbart school of right-wing advocacy. Their work can't be trusted, and some people usually manage to figure out where they've cut a corner or edited a tape in order to advance a bogus storyline. But too many reporters remember the initial bogus story as fact--ACORN workers helped a "pimp" set up a brothel, for example--which is precisely the point of this propaganda.

That's not my opinion-- that's what I learned reading the New York Times today (6/27/11). Jeremy Peters profiles the right-wing scam artist, telling readers (emphasis added):

Some of his reader-generated scoops have reverberated all the way to the halls of the United States Capitol, like the Weiner photos and undercover video he released of ACORN workers offering advice on how to evade taxes and conceal child prostitution. After the videos went viral Congress ended grants to ACORN, and federal agencies severed ties with the group.

That wasn't the lesson of the ACORN videos at all. After  a long battle, the Times admitted that much of its coverage of the Breitbart/James O'Keefe videos was misleading. The paper told readers that O'Keefe actually went into ACORN offices dressed in a ridiculous "pimp" get-up. He did not.

What the Times would not concede, though, was that the actual videos show very little in the way of tax evasion and prostitution advice. But that's the story Breitbart and O'Keefe were pushing; watching the actual videos doesn't provide much, if any, support for those claims. But they're still being made in the New York Times--which might be Breitbart's greatest triumph.

Peters goes on:

The stories and videos Mr. Breitbart plays up on his websites--which include Big Government, Big Journalism and Big Hollywood--tend to act as political Rorschach tests. If you agree with him, you think what he does is citizen journalism. If you don't, his work is little more than crowd-sourced political sabotage that freely distorts the facts.

This is absurd.

If you think that Breitbart distorts the facts, that's because HE DOES. To suggest otherwise is to assert that there's no way to ever know the truth about anything.  Is that the standard in "objective" journalism?

According to this post at MediaBistro (2/10/11), CNN is adding three new contributors. Two are right-wingers: Dana Loesch, a Tea Party radio host and editor of Andrew Breitbart's BigJournalism website. Will Cain is a commentator at the National Review website. And the "left"? His name is Cornell Belcher, a pollster and advertising/messaging consultant for various Democrats. 

Beyond the 2-1 numerical tilt in favor of the right,  this is a good example of how corporate media often pick their pundits. The right-wingers are true believers, drawn from the ranks of the conservative media world. TV leftists are generally not well-known advocates for the left, familiar to Democratic party insiders. That is the type of left/right debate they prefer.

Reporting on Andrew Breitbart's latest bit of deceit--using a selectively edited video to paint a low-level USDA official Shirley Sherrod as a racist--has given the media a chance to resurrect one of their favorite myths: Breitbart's triumphant takedown of the community-organizing group ACORN.

In September 2009, Breitbart's website BigGovernment.com posted videos, made by conservative activists Hannah Giles and James O'Keefe, supposedly showing ACORN employees counseling the pair--ostensibly pretending to be a prostitute and a pimp--on how to avoid paying taxes and other illegal activities.  The videos were later found to be completely misleading. Among other things, it was revealed that O'Keefe never dressed as a pimp in ACORN's offices, and in many cases he pretended to be Giles concerned boyfriend protecting her from abuse.

In covering the Shirley Sherrod story, many outlets have mentioned the videos--not as an example of Breitbart's established incredibility, but rather as a vindication of his heroic muckraking track record.

Answering for viewers the question, "Just who is Andrew Breitbart?," CNN American Morning anchors Kiran Chetry and John Roberts (7/21/10) said Breitbart "built a brand around his 'big' websites, and that includes BigGovernment.com, the site that first posted the video of Sherrod. There is also BigHollywood.com, BigJournalism.com, BigPeace.com." Roberts then reminded viewers that BigGovernment.com "was also the first site to post those undercover ACORN videos featuring the pimp and prostitute."

In their initial report on the Sherrod story, AP's Ben Evans and Mary Clare Jalonick (7/20/10) applauded BigGovernment.com as the site that "gained fame after releasing video of workers for the community organizing group ACORN counseling actors posing as a pimp and prostitute." Later versions of the story were changed to read "prostitute and her boyfriend." However, in a more recent article (7/21/10), Evans and Jalonick reverted to the less accurate "prostitute and her pimp."

Slate (7/22/10) even saw Breitbart's latest smear as reason to "recycle" Christopher Beam's fawning profile of Breitbart, where he praises him as the one who posted "the now-famous videos that showed two young conservatives, James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, entering several offices of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, better known as ACORN, posing as a pimp and a prostitute looking to open a brothel for underage, illegal immigrant girls."  This statement is made even stranger by the fact that, much further down in the profile, Beam quietly relents that O'Keefe was actually wearing "business casual" clothing. Beam also repeats the lie that Giles and O'Keefe "had been instructed to, among other things, bury their sex money in a tin in their back yard."

Again, O'Keefe never wore his ludicrous "pimp" out fit in the ACORN offices. Most times he was asking employees how to protect his girlfriend from an abusive pimp. The "tin in the backyard" suggestion was in response to a question from Giles on how to hide her money from the same fictitious pimp.  Also, it is now clear the videos were heavily edited to make employees appear to be answering questions in more sinister ways. In fact, Juan Carlos Vera, a San Diego ACORN employee who was fired as a result of the videos, was found to have called his cousin, a police detective, after the pair left to report their activities. Furthermore, ACORN has now been cleared of any criminal wrongdoing by three separate independent investigations.

All of this has been noted numerous times by FAIR (Action Alert, 3/11/10) and others (Brad Blog, 3/3/10). But considering the pervasiveness of this myth within the corporate media, it apparently needs to be pointed out again.

Sometimes it almost seems like one of the requirements for a high-placed job in corporate media is an inability to learn from experience. Take the front page of USA Today (7/22/10)--the "cover story" is about Shirley Sherrod (FAIR Blog, 7/21/10), whose ordeal is blamed in part on "conservative blogger" Andrew Breitbart taking advantage of "a media culture in which half-truths can spread like a virus online, to be instantly and endlessly chewed over on cable TV."

And right next to this piece, the paper's lead story is about voters being registered at welfare offices.  It concludes with a right-wing spin insinuating that registering poor people to vote is a form of electoral fraud:

Jason Torchinsky, a former Justice Department lawyer in the Bush administration, says liberal groups want welfare offices to replace the work of ACORN, a coalition of anti-poverty groups that disbanded this year after allegations of voter fraud.

"With the demise of ACORN, the left needs somebody to pick up that function," he says.

Except, of course, ACORN didn't disband after allegations of voter fraud; it disbanded after that same Andrew Breitbart who smeared Shirley Sherrod put out an equally fraudulent video that falsely portrayed the group as giving professional counseling to a guy dressed like Superfly--you know, one of those half-truths that spread like a virus online and wad instantly and endlessly chewed over on cable TV...and has clearly not yet been spit out by USA Today.

The lesson of Shirley Sherrod's disgraceful treatment by right-wing and not-so-right-wing media (followed by her equally squalid dismissal by an administration that took that media at face value) boils down to a single question: When will journalists see Andrew Breitbart as the serial promoter of journalistic frauds that he is, rather than as a legitimate source for story ideas?

FAIR readers will remember Breitbart's dissemination of videos that purported to show ACORN employees advising a "prostitute" and her "pimp" -- conservative activists Hannah Giles and James O'Keefe--on how to avoid paying taxes. The videos have since been heavily debunked. As FAIR has noted before (Action Alert, 3/11/10), O'Keefe didn't "pose" as a pimp--he didn't wear his ridiculous  "pimp" outfit inside ACORN offices, and in almost every case pretended to be a concerned boyfriend trying to get his girlfriend away from an abusive pimp. He also did not receive advice on how to "cheat" on his taxes. Additionally,  ACORN has been cleared of wrongdoing by three separate independent investigations.

Breitbart's latest fraud--posting a selectively edited video in which Sherrod appears to make some overtly racist statements to a local NAACP chapter--led to the forced resignation of the USDA employee.

That video went viral in the right-wing media and beyond, as accusations of Sherrod's racism were tossed about, along with the larger implication that the Obama administration harbored racists. As Sherrod tells it, she soon received three separate calls telling her the White House was asking for her resignation, with one official telling her she would be on Glenn Beck that night.

The Sherrod story didn’t actually make it on Beck that night, but it was all over Fox News. Bill O'Reilly (7/19/10) called Sherrod's comments "unacceptable" and called for her to "resign immediately."  Sean Hannity (7/19/10) called the comments "racist" and praised Breitbart for exposing them.

The next day, as details of Sherrod's entire speech emerged, it became clear she was describing her experience of struggling with and surmounting bias. Her point was an anti-racist one. Even the white farmer who was allegedly wronged by Sherrod appeared on CNN (7/20/10), along with his wife, to defend her.

Predictably, many right-wing media personalities stood by Breitbart even as the truth was being revealed. Rush Limbaugh (7/20/10) said Breitbart did "great work getting this video of Ms. Sherrod at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and her supposed racism."  Hannity (7/20/10) invited Breitbart on his show to defend himself.  Meanwhile, O'Reilly (7/20/10) stood by his demand for Sherrod's resignation, and even chastised the rest of the media for not reporting on Breitbart's heavily edited video--adding it to a long list of invented right-wing controversies he believes have been ignored by the mainstream media, including the aforementioned ACORN hoax, as well as the  New Black Panther voter intimidation "scandal" and the Van Jones resignation--both of which were wildly overblown (Counterspin, 7/16/10; Extra!, 11/09), but were, contrary to O'Reilly's protestations, picked up by more centrist media after amplification in the right-wing echo chamber.

The same is true of the Sherrod resignation, which some outlets continued to frame as a he said/she said controversy even after the truth began to emerge--outlets such as AP (7/20/10), which also took the opportunity to laud Breitbart's BigGovernment.com as the site that "gained fame after releasing video of workers for the community organizing group ACORN counseling actors posing as a pimp and prostitute."

In the Washington Post (7/21/10), Karen Tumulty and Krissah Thompson were still lending credence to Breitbart's video even after the entire speech was released, reporting on the episode as a controversy between Sherrod and "her critics" as well as one that reinforces the right-wing narrative "that the administration of the first African-American to occupy the White House practices its own brand of racism."

It isn't surprising that right-wing media continue to exalt Breitbart, but when will the rest of the corporate media learn that he can't be trusted?

ABC's Good Morning America got an "exclusive" with ACORN video hoaxters James O'Keefe and Andrew Breitbart on June 1.

Here's how host George Stephanopoulos set up the segment:

James O'Keefe became a media sensation after he and a friend posed as a pimp and prostitute and secretly recoded ACORN workers giving them advice on how to cheat on their taxes.

As FAIR noted in an action alert to the New York Times, O'Keefe didn't "pose" as a pimp--he didn't wear his absurd "pimp" get-up when he went in to ACORN offices, and in almost every case he presented himself as a concerned boyfriend trying to get his girlfriend away from an abusive pimp. And he didn't get any advice on how to "cheat" on his taxes. (Brad Friedman did the most thorough debunkings of these videos, and was on the case after the ABC interview).

What O'Keefe claimed happened during his visits to ACORN was not what actually happened--for instance, he videotaped himself wearing his garish "pimp" costume outside of ACORN offices in order to feed those misimpressions. But he never wore the get-up inside the ACORN facilities he targeted.

Stephanopoulos later alluded to "critics" who argue that O'Keefe "revised reality for political gain." The ABC host, on the other hand, said: "I have to give you credit for this, on ACORN, you did expose people doing things they shouldn't do."

Stephanopoulos was interrupted by Breitbart:  "Is it legal to help set up a prostitution ring in every single office?"

That is also false.

But instead of challenging these inaccuracies, Stephanopoulos defended his own record: "I was one of the few, if not the only journalist, who actually asked President Obama about the ACORN case, so I hold no brief."

Letters from FAIR and others eventually convinced the New York Times that treating O'Keefe and Breitbart as if they were actual journalists whose work could be trusted was a mistake. The paper issued a half-hearted correction, but the paper's subsequent ACORN reporting was very different. Here's how they put it on May 27: "In at least one video, ACORN workers advised a conservative activist who was posing as a prostitute how to conceal her criminal activities in the course of trying to buy a house."

The Times had previously written about the case in much more inflammatory--and inaccurate--language: "Their travels in the gaudy guise of pimp and prostitute through various offices of ACORN, the national community organizing group, caught its low-level employees in five cities sounding eager to assist with tax evasion, human smuggling and child prostitution."

It took a long time for the Times to admit even some of its errors. Public editor Clark Hoyt explained that part of the problem was that when O'Keefe appeared on television wearing a pimp costume to promote his videos, the Fox News hosts interviewing him said that he had worn the same outfit to ACORN offices--a claim O'Keefe did not correct. In other words, O'Keefe's work should be fact-checked by O'Keefe.

O'Keefe's ACORN hoax lives on only because journalists like Stephanopoulos fail to challenge him.

See Extra!: "Falling for the ACORN Hoax: The Strange Journalism of James O'Keefe" (4/10) by Veronica Cassidy.

Andrew Breitbart is the right-wing Internet provocateur behind the ACORN video hoaxes, which purported to show a pretend pimp-and-prostitute duo getting criminal advice from the community organizing group ACORN. That's not what happened, but Breitbart's inaccurate presentation was taken at face value.

Yet some in the media are still treating Breitbart seriously. Washington Post ombud Andrew Alexander wrote a column on April 11 taking his cue from Breitbart's latest effort, which is to attempt to cast doubt on the widely reported racist incidents at Tea Party protests at the Capitol on March 20, the day of the final health reform vote. Two black Democratic representatives--Andre Carson and John Lewis--say they were called "nigger." Breitbart says they're liars--it never happened. And he's posted videos of the protests with no audible racist invective.

There's just one problem; as Associated Press reporter Jesse Washington pointed out (4/13/10), the videos Breitbart is touting were shot after the incidents took place.

So a guy who pulled off one very successful media hoax is trying to pull off another one. You'd think that after being burned on the ACORN story, journalists wouldn't pay much attention to Breitbart. But not Andrew Alexander, who closed his column noting that Breitbart's efforts

may be publicity-seeking theater. But it's part of widespread conservative claims that mainstream media, including the Post, swallowed a huge fabrication. The incidents are weeks old, but it's worth assigning Post reporters to find the truth. After all, a civil rights legend is being called a liar.

There are lots of things reporters should be looking into. This is not one of them. Especially considering that the guy leading this campaign pulled off a "huge fabrication" of his own--which was "swallowed" whole by outlets like the Washington Post. Alexander's right that Lewis, a civil rights legend, is being called a liar. But the charge is coming from a liar. If Alexander is truly concerned that his paper has published fabrications, he could start by calling for an investigation of the paper's coverage of Breitbart's ACORN hoax-- especially since Alexander criticized the Post for not covering the ACORN story enough.