April 29, 2011

Yet Another “Classic Breitbarting”

Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/99525316@N00/3499576944">shalf/Flickr</a>

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On Monday, Andrew Breitbart’s Big Government site posted “exclusive, explosive” video of what it described as “Thuggery 101″—a professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and a union official advocating “violence and industrial sabotage” to a classroom of college students. This led to instant hyperventilation about “taxpayer-funded courses in union violence”. Now, like many a sensational video linked to Breitbart, this latest scoop has disintegrated in the bright light of day. Crooks and Liars has the definitive takedown, which shows how the supposedly inflammatory soundbites posted on Big Government were intentionally edited to strip them of their context and twist their intended meanings. In other words, yet another “classic Breitbarting.”

On the positive side, the original video did not get much traction beyond right-wing sites, which may suggest that the rest of the media has wised up to the Breitbart/James O’Keefe M.O. Or maybe it was just too distracted by the birthers to be bothered.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

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Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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