At Politico, Context and Facts Are Negotiable

Today’s lead story at Politico is one of the finer examples you will find of ideological ax-grinding dressed up as straight-news reporting. The piece, by Ken Vogel and Keach Hagey, uses just about every journalistic trick in the book, assembling a selection of quotes and points to establish a narrative that was set in the authors’ minds long before they sat down at their keyboards. But the piece does so much more too; it flirts with some blurry ethical lines as well. Shouldn’t, for example, a Politico article about Journolist have perhaps mentioned or disclosed that at least some reporters for Politico were, you know, members of Journolist? Perhaps Politico has an incentive to downplay the impact of the listserve? (And, Mr. Vogel, did Andrew Breitbart really not respond to Politico?)

I will leave it to my colleagues at Big Journalism to give the proper attention this article is due. However, in building their ideological case, the authors point to certain “facts” about stories that first appeared here, which necessitates a few words here.

In discussing the recent Shirley Sherrod imbroglio, the authors write that Breitbart,

did not quite own up to the seriousness of the error he committed – posting a video misleadingly edited to make it appear that a black Agriculture Department named Shirley Sherrod was boasting of discriminating against a white farmer.

We did not edit, much less misleadingly edit, any of Ms. Sherrod’s remarks. We posted two excerpts from her speech, representing the sum total of the video we had. We didn’t cut anything out of her speech. Is any news organization in the future who only posts excerpts from a speech vulnerable to the charge that it “misleadingly edited” it?

At the very end of one of the video excerpt’s, Ms. Sherrod begins to explain how she later realized her initial discrimination of the white farmer was wrong. In Andrew’s article about the speech he noted

Eventually, her basic humanity informs that this white man is poor and needs help.

If we were trying to show that Ms. Sherrod was “boasting” of discrimination and were prone to editing the tape as evidence, wouldn’t we have cut that part out? Wouldn’t we have neglected to mention that she eventually did the right thing? But, the media’s focus on Ms. Sherrod is really an attempt to misdirect attention from the NAACP, who was the real focus of the article and the video excerpts.

As Andrew’s article noted:

Sherrod’s racist tale is received by the NAACP audience with nodding approval and murmurs of recognition and agreement. Hardly the behavior of the group now holding itself up as the supreme judge of another groups’ racial tolerance.

We all now know that Ms. Sherrod’s anecdote was part of a larger point about the need to move beyond racial prejudices. But, the NAACP audience did not know that as they heard the speech. As Ms. Sherrod recounted the first part of her parable, how she declined to do everything she could for the farmer because of his race, the audience responded in approval. By itself, that made the video excerpt newsworthy.

Indeed, the NAACP, who was in possession of the full video for months, even noted in its initial statement condemning Ms. Sherrod:

The reaction from many in the audience is disturbing. We will be looking into the behavior of NAACP representatives at this local event and take any appropriate action.

This was always the story and it is clearly an uncomfortable one for the NAACP and, obviously, the authors of the Politico article. The media would rather focus on Ms. Sherrod or Andrew Breitbart than report that leaders of a state chapter of the NAACP approved of racial discrimination.

But, the authors aren’t finished there. To further underscore their point, they return to that old lefty cliche from last year; that what you saw with your own eyes on the ACORN tapes didn’t really happen. The authors make this outright statement:

The ACORN videos were later revealed to have been misleadingly edited…

Not alleged, mind you, but “revealed,” as if the Oracle of Delphi issued a formal proclamation. And, who exactly “revealed” this “fact:” oh, yes, Democrat Attorney General Jerry Brown. Brown is a long-time ally of ACORN and is running for Governor again this year. As ACORN had traditionally been an important part of Democrat candidate’s election efforts, he might have had an incentive to find that the ACORN videos were “misleadingly edited.” In fact, at the beginning of Brown’s investigation, a local ACORN spokesman told a meeting of local democrats that he had spoken to Brown’s office and was assured:

the fault WILL be found with the people that did the video — not ACORN.

That certainly adds some interesting context to Brown’s “finding.” Of course, Brown may objectively believe the ACORN videos were “misleadingly edited.” But he isn’t a disinterested observer. Politico should have noted that, even if it would have weakened their intended point. So too, they should have noted that, from the very beginning, the full audio recording and transcript of the entire ACORN interviews were available here. I have heard many on the left say ad nauseum that the ACORN videos were “heavily edited”, but I have yet to see one concrete example of how this alleged editing altered the substance of what the videos revealed.

At the very beginning of Andrew’s article on racism at the NAACP, he noted that “context is everything.” To the authors of the Politico article, context is negotiable; simply another weapon in a reporter’s ideological tool-kit.