NPR’s ‘All Things Considered’ Profiles Andrew Breitbart

From NPR’s “All Things Considered”:

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Conservative Blogger Faces Criticism Over Protege, by DAVID FOLKENFLIK

The conservative online news entrepreneur Andrew Breitbart is, for the moment, doing little to dispel stereotypes about bloggers. During a recent visit to his home on the west side of Los Angeles, Breitbart, 41, is working from his own basement. Barefoot. At the beck and call of his own kids.

But that basement is light and airy, with a decent view of the city. A young assistant works there with Breitbart to help funnel wire service stories to Breitbart.com, his main news aggregation site. And his reach, thanks to a brawling rhetorical style and a protege who taped the undercover ACORN videos last year, is only expanding.

Over the past year, Breitbart has hired editors to run a new network of conservative blogs called BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com and BigJournalism.com. No matter the focus, the media are a prime target throughout. (more…)

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Tags: 'All Things Considered', Andrew Breitbart, Breitbart.com, Clark Hoyt, DAVID FOLKENFLIK
Posted Feb 2nd 2010 at 8:36 pm in ACORN, Media Criticism, News | 6911884 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/publius/2010/02/02/nprs-all-things-considered-profiles-andrew-breitbart/NPR%27s+%27All+Things+Considered%27+Profiles+Andrew+Breitbart2010-02-03+04%3A36%3A39Publius

‘Clueless’ Clark Alert: The Top Ten Undernews Stories of the Year, Part I

Because nobody who’s anybody reads the The New York Times these days, except the die-harders and dead-enders along West End Avenue, as well as the editors of Time and Newsweek, you may not know who “Clueless” Clark Hoyt is, but it really doesn’t matter because he doesn’t know who you are, either.  For those scoring at home in their pajamas, Mr. Hoyt is the “public editor” of the Times, i.e. the hapless fellow who has to write those tedious Sunday reports to the readers, in which he explains why whatever the Times did was right and whatever they didn’t do… well, hey, they didn’t know about it!  What do you think they are, a “newspaper of record” or something?

Some editors told me they were not immediately aware of the Acorn videos on Fox, YouTube and a new conservative Web site called BigGovernment.com.  When the Senate voted to cut off all federal funds to Acorn, there was not a word in the newspaper, although a report in the Caucus blog that day covered the action. When the New York City Council froze all its funding for Acorn and the Brooklyn district attorney opened a criminal investigation, there was still nothing.

Well Mr. Hoyt, welcome to the world of the “undernews” – Mickey Kaus’s apt word for the news that everyone in the blogosphere knows about but, apparently, no one who gets his news strictly from the Times, other major newspapers, the newsweeklies, and most of the networks has the slightest inkling of.

(more…)

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Tags: ACORN, ACORN videos, Andy Stern, Buffy Wicks, Clark Hoyt
Posted Dec 18th 2009 at 5:29 am in ACORN, Culture, Featured Story, Media Criticism | 4708633 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/mwalsh/2009/12/18/clueless-clark-alert-the-top-ten-undernews-stories-of-the-year-part-i/%27Clueless%27+Clark+Alert%3A+The+Top+Ten+Undernews+Stories+of+the+Year%2C+Part+I2009-12-18+13%3A29%3A53Michael+Walsh

The Public Option Deception

The public option has been a political football since early summer. The President has said more than once that he prefers it but will not demand it. This was considered capitulation by many on the left who see the public option as necessary for “real” reform. Meanwhile, belying the President’s public statements, there are reports that the President’s Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel has been quietly but firmly twisting arms in the back rooms to insure the public option is included in the final bill. Even now, pressure is mounting on Harry Reid to include the public option in the health reform bill he brings to the Senate floor.

In response to the tumult over what appears to be a small feature of the effort, more than one critic has wondered aloud why Democrats don’t just give up on the public option – which is opposed by every Republican – in order to reach a more bipartisan outcome. What exactly is so important about the public option anyway? And why do Democrats in particular seem so wedded to the idea?

There is a simple answer to these questions, but it’s an answer you’ve likely not heard from any institution in the mainstream media. The truth is that the public plan is a carefully devised scheme, a sneaky strategy, to deceive American voters. It’s a political marketing ploy designed to move the nation to a single-payer system – like the one in Canada – over the next decade. The public option is the Trojan horse. On the outside it’s all about “choice and competition”, but once it has been dragged within the walls of American medicine it’s true nature will become evident. By that time, it’ll be too late.

(more…)

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Tags: ACORN, American Medical Association, Barack Obama, Barney Frank, Clark Hoyt
Posted Oct 21st 2009 at 5:15 am in ACORN, Featured Story, Healthcare, Politics | 18546101 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/richmondsexton/2009/10/21/the-public-option-deception-with-exclusive-new-audio/The+Public+Option+Deception2009-10-21+12%3A15%3A58Morgen+Richmond+and+John+Sexton

NY Times Editor: Paper Was Too Slow to Cover ACORN Scandal

From New York Times Public Editor Clary Hoyt:

ON Sept. 12, an Associated Press article inside The Times reported that the Census Bureau had severed its ties to Acorn, the community organizing group. Robert Groves, the census director, was quoted as saying that Acorn, one of thousands of unpaid organizations promoting the 2010 census, had become “a distraction.”

Clark Hoyt

What the article didn’t say — but what followers of Fox News and conservative commentators already knew — was that a video sting had caught Acorn workers counseling a bogus prostitute and pimp on how to set up a brothel staffed by under-age girls, avoid detection and cheat on taxes. The young woman in streetwalker’s clothes and her companion were actually undercover conservative activists with a hidden camera.

It was an intriguing story: employees of a controversial outfit, long criticized by Republicans as corrupt, appearing to engage in outrageous, if not illegal, behavior. An Acorn worker in Baltimore was shown telling the “prostitute” that she could describe herself to tax authorities as an “independent artist” and claim 15-year-old prostitutes, supposedly illegal immigrants, as dependents. (more…)

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Tags: 2010 Census, ACORN, acorn scandal, BigGovernment.com, Bretha Lewis
Posted Sep 27th 2009 at 12:26 am in ACORN, Featured Story, Media Criticism | 9362114 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/publius/2009/09/27/ny-times-public-editor-discusses-papers-slow-reflexes-on-acorn-scandal/NY+Times+Editor%3A+Paper+Was+Too+Slow+to+Cover+ACORN+Scandal2009-09-27+07%3A26%3A16Publius