Help us, Andrew Breitbart, You're Our Only Hope

Help me, Andrew.  I have a problem that only you can solve.  

I’m supposed to write something for the site and I’m past my deadline. I just can’t figure out how to write it. 

How many times in the past were you able to help me with this problem, Andrew? I’d IM you, BoDiaz, and you would condense the topic I was wrestling with down to one, perfect headline. You were able to cut through all the distractions of a complicated topic and focus me on the real story.   

And it wasn’t just me you did this for. 

I saw you, working behind that ridiculously gigantic desk in your basement, focusing so many people on your team on the larger narrative. I heard you on the phone, (how could I not? you were pretty loud in that echoey office) and you would regularly harness the talents of your contributors and your editors and point them in the direction which you knew they could excel and shine. You were the consummate talent scout.  

But, beyond a talent scout, you were also the owner and manager of the team. Like Tommy Lasorda of your beloved Dodgers you were able to put the players you scouted into the perfect position and in the right batting order of your line-up to win the game. 

In my mind, Andrew, this was your greatest talent, and hardly anyone ever knew about it. Why? Because you were the most generous and supportive person I’ve ever experienced in all my years in the media and entertainment industry.  

How many times did you go on television and radio to call members of your team like James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles and Patrick Courrielche and well, me, the {insert your favorite superlative here} journalists in America today? How often did I hear you feed a lead to another writer and help them create a narrative. How often did those stories end up having a huge impact, landing the writer on talk radio and television, thanks to your help? And no one ever knew you were the one behind the story.

So many citizen journalists, many of them didn’t even write for your sites, owe their new careers to you. When they were offered jobs at competing websites I heard you say to them on the phone, “I wish you well and I understand you going to work for them. I only wish I could hire you but I just don’t have the budget.”

Helpful, generous, brilliant and visionary, you understood every aspect of the media and taught so many of us how to bring out our best as writers, editors, broadcasters and television personalities. Other than your laugh, this may be the thing about you that I have missed more than anything else over this past year. 

So, I need you today more then ever before, Andrew. Because the post I have to write is about you. I’m supposed to write about what you meant to me and to our company and to the media and to the country. I need your help because I can’t do it. I don’t even know how to begin. 

Because you’re gone.

I miss you so much.