**editor’s note: This was written in February of 2011. Andrew Breitbart has since died, and this is meant in no way to be disrespectful of him, his efforts, his memory, or etc.; it’s just how I felt when I read the article. Also, a couple of years after this incident, Mr. Breitbart said that the video was not altered, but that the audio was not clear and that was the reason it appeared that Ms. Sherrod was confessing discrimination. However, were that the case, there would have been no reason for Breitbart’s organization to show the video in the first place. I stand by my position.
I’m going to start here with two quotes. You may recognize the first:
“Amendment 1: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”–U.S. Constitution
The second is from USA Today, here’s the link,
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2011/02/ag-dept-employee-sues-conservative-blogger-over-edited-video/1
and here’s the text:
‘Shirley Sherrod, the African-American Agriculture Department employee who lost her job over an edited video purporting to show her anti-white bias, filed a lawsuit against the owner of a conservative website who posted it, The New York Times reports.
In the video, Sherrod appears to be confessing in a speech that she had discriminated against white farmers while working for the department. The full version, which surfaced a few days later, shows that the speech was about how she overcame her own biases to help the farmer.
Andrew Breitbart posted the edited video on his site, biggovernment.com.
In the uproar triggered by the initial posting, Sherrod was pressured by the Obama administration to resign.
In the suit filed last week, Sherrod charged that the edited video damaged her reputation and prevented her from continuing her work.
Breitbart said in a statement that he “categorically rejects the transparent effort to chill his constitutionally protected free speech,” The Timesreports.’
Mr. Breitbart, with all due respect, you are wrong. This is not constitutionally protected free speech. If your edits had not changed the intention of her words, THEN it would be constitutionally protected free speech.
The Constitution of the United States of America is the document that defines how our government is made up, how it is constituted. At the time of its inception–and I feel a series of posts coming on about the whole document–the convention of men were very concerned that the citizens have access to information about their leaders and their political activities. One of the problems they were trying to prevent right out of the gate was a fettered press. It was widely considered that as long as the journalists felt confident that they could, without fear of reprisal, freely report on the issues and events within the layers of the government, government could be held to an exacting standard of integrity. The government officials would know that they are being watched and that they cannot operate in secret. Where the government had the codified authority to stifle the press, the government had the power of tyranny over the people. The news outlets of that time, and of all times, needed then and need now to have no fear to broadcast the TRUTH.
This is where Mr. Breitbart’s statement is in error. He has no constitutionally protected right to tell a LIE. Deliberately altering material so that the intention is diametrically opposed to the intent is deceptive and false. It is exactly what the press is supposed to protect US against.
I suppose that Mr. Breitbart could position himself as a commentator rather than a pure journalist, but the fact remains that he still has no constitutional protection to allow him to deceive his readers. He may get away with it, he may have many times gotten away with it, and that doesn’t make it acceptable or correct.
Mr. Breitbart owes Ms. Sherrod an apology and he owes both Ms. Sherrod and his readers a retraction and a correction. He needs to ‘fess up and admit that he purposely altered the video with the intent to deceive his readers. The damage is done and cannot be undone, only mitigated.
I know that Mr. Breitbart doesn’t care about my opinion. I don’t care that he doesn’t care. He has compromised his integrity and in so doing he has diminished his credibility. If the rest of the journalists don’t call him out on this, as USA Today did, their credibility suffers the same fate.
I believe the word is Libel.