On Tuesday evening the New York Observer posted an interview with Andrew Breitbart written by Kat Stoeffel. In it she invented a new and preposterous claim about the Shirley Sherrod story:
According to Mr. Breitbart, fellow Tea Partier Glenn Beck first joined him in editing and eviscerating Ms. Sherrod’s 2010 N.A.A.C.P. speech on the radio, before publishing the unedited version on his Web site, discrediting Mr. Breitbart on television and calling for his apology.
This is a complete and total fabrication on multiple levels. First, and most important, is the fact that the Shirley Sherrod video was not “edited” in any way by anyone at all. An excerpt was shown at Big Government and Breitbart.tv but the excerpt was a continuous clip with no edits made to it at all. I know, I’m the one who posted it.
Which brings us to the second and most ridiculous claim made by the New York Observer: that Glenn Beck had anything at all to do with the “editing” or presentation of the Shirley Sherrod clip. This is, of course, a complete and total fabrication. And, on Wednesday April 20th, two days ago, the author of the post Kat Stoeffel acknowledged that it was wrong and needed to be corrected.
As of now, the correction still has not been made. Which can only lead us to believe that the editors and publishers of the New York Observer want to lie to their readers and want them to think that Glenn Beck edited the video of Shirley Sherrod with Andrew Breitbart.
Here is the letter I sent to Ms. Stoeffel within hours of the post going up:
Dear Ms. Stoeffel:
I am contacting you in reference to your blog of April 19, 2011, posted at 7:41 p.m., “‘Glenn Beck Threw Me Under the Bus’: Breakfast with Andrew Breitbart.”
Your post contains the following paragraph:
According to Mr. Breitbart, fellow Tea Partier Glenn Beck first joined him in editing and eviscerating Ms. Sherrod’s 2010 N.A.A.C.P. speech on the radio, before publishing the unedited version on his Web site, discrediting Mr. Breitbart on television and calling for his apology.
That paragraph is a misrepresentation of events and of Mr. Breitbart’s actual words.
Mr. Breitbart did not cooperate with Glenn Beck in editing Ms. Sherrod’s speech, as your article implies, nor would he have suggested to you that he had done so
Mr. Breitbart likely informed you that Mr. Beck had commented on Ms. Sherrod’s speech on his radio program on the morning of Tuesday, July 20, 2010. Mr. Beck only aired audio of the first part of the first clip that Mr. Breitbart posted as part of his July 19, 2010 article, leaving out important parts which Mr. Breitbart had included.
On Friday, July 23, 2010, appearing on The O’Reilly Factor, Mr. Beck claimed that “it never played” on his show and that “from the jump” he realized “something is not right with this.” These were misleading statements by Mr. Beck, in light of his radio coverage earlier in the week.
Your article, as written, creates a mistaken perception of events relating to the controversy over Ms. Sherrod’s speech.
We respectfully demand a correction as soon as possible.
Within hours, Ms. Stoeffel responded to my request:
I understand and will amend.
And here we sit. On Friday April 22nd. The post still sits with the complete fabrication for all of the Observer’s readers to see. Even worse, the story is now getting picked up by other outlets and reported as fact.
I reached out to Ms. Stoeffel again and asked why the correction has not been made. The answer is incredible and, frankly, unacceptable:
i’m out of office, unexpectedly limited internet access. have sent request to editors.
Ms. Stoeffel’s internet access was just fine when she printed a handful of lies about Mr. Breitbart and Mr. Beck. It seemed fine when she acknowledged the error and promised to fix it. How can a journalist sit idly by while a lie is published under her byline? Is there no one to call to fix this error? Can she not get to a Starbucks with free WiFi?
Ms. Stoeffel, let’s get real. I edit a web site and I own two Verizon broadband cards and a smart phone that can amend the site at any moment. If for some reason those devices fail, I have two colleagues I can call at any given moment to fix an error on the site. And Breitbart.com is a relatively small operation. Surely there are systems in place at the New York Observer to fix an outright lie that appears on their site.
At this point we can only conclude that the Observer doesn’t care if their readers see a lie, as long as the lie is aimed to injure Mr. Breitbart and Mr. Beck. And this, my friends is the latest example of why Breitbart’s book “Righteous Indignation” is so critical in exposing the agenda of the Democrat/Media Complex. Thank you Ms. Stoeffel and the New York Observer for providing further proof that journalism from the left no longer exists and the rules have changed forever.
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