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Color of Change, a great organization with many successes behind them (including the superb action to get Glenn Beck’s advertisers to stop giving FOX News Channel money to air their ads during his program) has a new media action. Please join your voice to all of ours, to ask Arianna Huffington not to provide a platform for infamous race-baiter and notorious liar Andrew Breitbart on her new AOL joint venture.
You can sign the Color of Change letter here:
Dear Ms. Huffington,
I am deeply disappointed that The Huffington Post has chosen to give a platform to the notorious liar and race-baiter Andrew Breitbart. I urge you to stop promoting his work immediately, and publicly explain why Breitbart’s work was promoted to the front page.
Breitbart’s long history of attacking Black people and institutions — from ACORN to Shirley Sherrod to Black farmers who were compensated for years of discrimination — has few parallels among mainstream media figures. Worse, these attacks were based on deceptive editing and willful distortion of the truth. That Huffington Post would choose to elevate Breitbart when news outlets from ABC to Fox News have distanced themselves from him is both tone-deaf and insulting.
It’s especially galling that The Huffington Post seeks to attract Black audiences with its planned “Global Black” venture, even as its main site provides a prominent platform for Breitbart to continue spreading lies that have a real impact on Black people.
If the Huffington Post is to be taken seriously — whether by Black audiences or any other — then prominent placement should not be given to someone like Andrew Breitbart. I urge you not to promote his work at The Huffington Post.
Sincerely,
[Your Name]
Please take a moment to add your voice to the many who’ve signed this letter already. We need to hold citizen journalism accountable, just like we hold Legacy Media accountable. The Color of Change action will help do that, and will be stronger with your name on it.
Thanks.
48 Comments
This is a fine action, I hope you’ll add your voice to mine and many others who have asked Arianna not to elevate this person to a position of prominence on her new enterprise.
I signed and asked that he not be a part of her organization. What a horrible choice she made; I can’t imagine what she was thinking.
Do we know if this was Arianna’s call or if it was a Yahoo call? In any case I think that Breitbart is a world class douche so of course I support color of change’s action.
When a business gets too loose and big I think they don’t pay attention to the “small stuff”….signed, sealed and delivered, Teddy.
Maybe someone will start a petition on THIS:
What the boyz are doing to the Wimmin of Tahrir:
Secret shame of Egypt’s army: Women protesters were forced to have ‘virginity checks’ after being arrested in Tahrir Square
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1369259/Egypt-protests-Women-forced-virginity-checks-arrests-Tahir-Square.html#ixzz1HWUiuY1f
“A spokesman for the human rights organisation said that the actions were ‘utterly unacceptable.’
‘The purpose is to degrade women because they are women,’ he said. ‘All women of the medical profession must refuse to take part in such so-called “tests.”‘
The spokesman also said that one woman who told the military she was a virgin and then failed the ‘test’ was beaten and given electric shocks.
‘Women and girls must be able to express their views on the future of Egypt and protest against the government without being detained, tortured, or subjected to profoundly degrading and discriminatory treatment,’ he added.
‘The army officers tried to further humiliate the women by allowing men to watch and photograph what was happening, with the implicit threat that the women could be at further risk of harm if the photographs were made public.
‘The Egyptian authorities must halt the shocking and degrading treatment of women protesters. Women fully participated in bringing change in Egypt and should not be punished for their activism.”
Not too many stories on this a s Egyptian wimmin try to throw off their shackles, I’ve noticed.
Typical
I got booed and dissed here at fdl early last year for calling Breitbart a racist. Glad to see less pushback on that subject here now.
I’ll sign – and post this diary at my blog, Progressive Alaska. Thanks, Teddy P!
Done! If HuffPost publishes Breitbart’s known rot, what as-yet-unrevealed rot underlies its other stories? And why should I waste time wondering? Told H.P. this.
Since when is censorship a liberal value?
I wouldn’t be working with Andrew Breitbart if he were a racist. He and I don’t agree on many issues but out work on the Pigford settlement is 100% supportive of the real black farmers who were discriminated against by the USDA.
If you oppose Breitbart’s ideas, great — but Color of Change’s cynical faux-campaign to shut him is against the values of open debate that progressives should stand for.
How about just not supporting the corporate blog huffington post at all? It was tabloid trash to begin with and now its going to be corporate tabloid trash that can only be loved by dlc’ers.
Are you kidding? He was almost completely responsible for the Citizens United case!
The green section is good. Plus, it’s fun to embarrass the trolls over there
i say dump Arianna and HP
Thanks Teddy. Done,and posted to my facebook wall asking “What the hell is Zsa-Zsa – er, Arianna – thinking??” ;)
He’s just returning to the fold, I guess: Breitbart alternately calls himself a PuffHo “founder” and says he “helped create” PuffHo, so he was apparently involved after leaving the tender clutches of Drudge.
Arianna is queen of all media at her new AOL operation; not sure what this has to do with Yahoo!?
You should totally start a petition on that.
I would sign your petition.
Thanks for signing this one!
Thanks, ET
No one is censoring Andrew Breitbart; the government isn’t involved in this petition. This isn’t a first amendment issue. This is an issue of what are Arianna’s values: does she believe in hiring someone who did to Shirley Sherrod what Breitbart did? Does she believe in doing to ACORN what Breitbart did?
If so, that’s entirely her call but I won’t spend another moment at PuffHo.
Thanks for signing and passing the word!
I don’t believe the letter, or I, say anything about promising to read PuffHo should Arianna agree with Color of Change about Breitbart. There’s nothing wrong with petitioning an organization you have no intent to spend time with in the first place, right?
sexual assault.
bastards
FWIW, a friend of mine who works for yahoo says this was Yahoo’s call. Arianna’s position was irrevelent, Yahoo just wants the traffic for their advertisers.
Which means we need to target yahoo’s advertisers.
Boxturtle (Signed, and recommended)
did you mean aol?
Argh. Yes. I was working with yahoo when i typed that and, well….
Boxturtle (Thanks for the correction)
I don’t understand how anyone can say “AOL did this” when the pre-purchase publicity is that Arianna is entirely in charge of the AOL media empire, centered on PuffHo, now. I’m not sure it’s true that publishing decisions are made outside her purview.
She should be held accountable for what gets published and promoted at PuffHo. It’s still her name on the masthead, and in the executives’ box.
I am awaiting word from Color of Change, but it looks to me as I read Greg Sargent’s piece in the Washington Post that VICTORY is ours!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/huffington-post-yanks-breitbart-from-front-page/2011/03/03/ABRXMPQB_blog.html
EXCERPT:
Got the email from ColorOfChange yesterday. Signed and added my two cents in the petition.
Ms. Huffington got what she wanted all along, a BIG pile of cash and the ability to move eastward (DC/NYC) into the inner circle of the elites. Corporate (buyout) overlords often say “nothing is going to change” and as soon as that comes out of their pieholes that means they are going to make changes. Been that, done there…”pre-purchase publicity”…..ah, nuff said.
From the PuffHo email to Sargent, linked in article above:
So Mario is saying he just started checking on Breitbart today?
They ought to replace Breitbart’s front-page spot with Max Blumenthal, who is one of the most under-rated quality journalists in the USA. Plus – Breitbart hates Max’s guts. That might force Andy to take his ball and try to play somewhere else.
Arianna Huffington spent decades as a conservative and it has only been in recent years that she supposedly became a “progressive” voice (as late as 2003, she ran for governor of California as an independent (and “independent” didn’t mean progressive). While I believe people CAN change their beliefs, I don’t think Arianna Huffington should be the voice of “progressives”. Her sell-out to AOL indicated who she really is. Now that she has “captured” a number of progressives, she can put out the real message by people such as Andrew Breitbart under the guise of “providing different perspectives”. I avoid the Huffington Post.
I confused the two. Sorry
There is much wisdom is what you wrote.
I often wonder why Max’s work doesn’t get the play it deserves.
He is remarkable. Remember when he went to CPAC’s “Support the Troops” event and asked everyone why they hadn’t enlisted, at the height of the push for Teh Surge™? That was great gonzo journalism.
JOK3 and Breitbart can’t hold a candle to Max.
Signed this guy backs ACORN Pimp who wanted to do what exactly with that female CNN reporter? But of course he claims he knew nothing about it? Who else buys the ACORN pimps films?
Arianna sold out to AOL I see:(
Yeah, I added my voice and name to this one, n of course, they hit me with solicitations for money right up front.
I tire of this process, and am getting a bit annoyed with it.
I have no money.
But I support this one.
Money is not the option. Heart is.
Harumph.
N now that I think about it . . .
What exactly DOES my heart of 50 years of protest buy?
Breitbart makes a big deal of going after ACORN, black congressmen, black farmers, Van Jones, and Shirley Sherrod.
And he’s not a racist.
Jesus. That’s just fucking sad.
Oh, yes. This is censorship. Maybe Breitbart should think about starting up his own blog or website or something. You should mention that to him. Maybe show him how it’s done…
In a similar situation, Dan froomkin demoted his own article about Paul Craig Roberts after David Frum contacted him and “outed” him as a truther, even though the article was about economics and his anti-war views. It sure didn’t take a petition, and a disclaimer was added.
Oops! HuffPo Puffs 9/11
Heh! He said Breitbart…
So Froomkin responds to a list of questions by Frum:
Here is the HuffPo update:
So there you have it. If your views don’t support the orthodoxy, you’re a pariah. You don’t even have to be a liar, a slanderer, or a disgusting human being. (of course Frum got in a dig about what an ant-Semite Roberts is because of the 3 billion in “AID” Israel gets while our government is cutting social services for the poor when we need them the most.)
Now did a disclaimer get added to Breitbarts piece labeling him as a serial fabricator?
There is no pool of potential small donors more riled up and likely to contribute, I imagine, than those who have signed a petition. It’s tiresome, yes, for those of us who can’t help every cause that comes along — or even any of them! — but I think it’s probably the best way for organizations like Color of Change to stay alive, by asking people who support their actions to make a donation.
“talking points” today, seem to be black=bad…CNN and MSNBC both. Guessing they are greasing the skids..it is subtle, sort of, and highly despicable.
Nonsense -
You have a right to say anything -
You have no right to demand to be published
And a claim to a right to be published lest there will be censorship is BULL – something that would be laughed at by Fox and the right and indeed by the so called “liberal” mainstream media like the Washington Post.
I have friends that get published as guest writers in the EU – but can’t get in the NYT – or even in the letters to the NYT.
Salon Political Organization Takes Down Andrew Breitbart
2 hours ago
“ColorofChange.org applauds the Huffington Post’s decision to no longer give Andrew Breitbart a prominent platform for his so-called ‘journalism’. …BET – 21 related articles
Why is Huffington Post elevating Andrew Breitbart? | MyFDLMar 23, 2011 … The Huffington Post understands the power of featuring someone on … IIRC, Breitbart was one of the driving forces in the creation of the Huffington Post…
my.firedoglake.com/…/why-is-huffington-post-elevating-andrew-breitbart/ – Cached
Why would we want a phony liberal like Huffington not to hire proven right-wing liar Breitbart? Her doing so serves to expose here for what she has been for many years now: a right-wing plant who uses her media organization to provide a veal pen in which progressives may bitch and complain, but do no more than that. Creating a veal pen in which to corral the left is a highly successful and lucrative business. Just ask Moulitsas, Bowers, Huffington, and others who run such businesses. If the venture is not financially profitable, it is ideologically so in that it achieves its designed purpose.
HuffPo actually pulled down Joseph Dana and Max Blumenthal’s videos ‘Feelin’ the Hate in Jerusalem, and then followed soon afterward by pulling down ‘Feeling the Hate in Tel Aviv,’ the sequel to the first.
since when is newsworthiness an ideal a value that Huffington Post aspires to?
What I take from this is that Froomkin has a better perspective on how to deal with loons than Huffington does.
Froomkin is the senior editor at Huffpo, and I don’t believe Paul Craig Roberts is a loon. There is a big swath of people that don’t believe the 911 investigation achieved it’s mandate, especially after being shut down early. This includes one of the actual commission members if I remember correctly. Just the fact some of the 18 were found alive should make every one of us “truthers”. This is just a way to smear those with reasonable doubts, by associating them with outlandish theorists.
My take away is that Huffpo and Breitbart were correctly categorized by Frum anyway, even though I don’t agree with him. That’s why they are willing to let him even publish there at all. Birds of a feather. Breitbart is an enemy of the working-class and blacks, and obviously that’s not enough to keep him from making a buck off him.
If you take Dana and Blumenthal’s videos into consideration what they have in common with Roberts is they dare to criticize israel- that’s ideology enforcement but Frum is guilty of the same thing. (they’ll abide no criticism of Israel, or question of the 911 report)
But counter to what Frum thinks, Roberts isn’t a liar like O’Keefe, even if you want to believe he believes nutty things.
If that’s the case, then it’s kinda like “We’ve already determined what you are, now we’re just haggling over price.”
We know her monetary price, what’s her ethical price? Oh, I forgot. This is Arianna Huffington we’re talking about. And Teddy, Puffho is so much more appropriate.
Front page ban isn’t enough. Stifle this prick. And if that’s a violation of liberal principles, strahan, fuck you. I’m not a liberal, I’m a revolutionary socialist.