The Times recently printed a puff piece about Andrew Breitbart. Breitbart is the right wing media agitator who, having successfully obtained Anthony Weiner’s scalp, is now batting .250 when it comes to the scandals he’s agitated. In the other three he demonstrably lied or distorted evidence. Each time the media duly reported his allegations, while printing retractions, if at all, long after it was too late for the victims.
In yet another demonstration of that peculiar right leaning liberal bias that the media has embraced, the Times has now seen fit to retroactively sanitize Breitbart’s lies. The full story is at Media Matters.
See for yourself. From the original article [emphasis added]:
Defending himself, Mr. Breitbart said that the video came to him already edited, and that the crowd applauded when Ms. Sherrod said she did not help the man.
From the correction:
In a short video clip of the speech, which Mr. Breitbart released as evidence that Ms. Sherrod acknowledged not helping a white farmer, some audience members nodded and murmured in apparent approval; they did not applaud, although Mr. Breitbart stated that they did.
From the updated text in the article:
Mr. Breitbart said that the video came to him already edited, and that some audience members nodded and murmured in apparent approval when Ms. Sherrod said she did not help the man.
So, the Times, in its correction, asserts unequivocally that Breitbart lied to its reporter, and then changed the text of the article to make it look like he told the truth. The term Orwellian can be somewhat misused, but in this case it’s right on target. After all, doing what the Times did was what Winston Smith did for a living.
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