According to Huffington Post, Smith stated the following:
“We here at Studio B did not run the video and did not reference the story in any way for many reasons, among them: we didn’t know who shot it, we didn’t know when it was shot, we didn’t know the context of the statement, and because of the history of the videos on the site where it was posted, in short we do not and did not trust the source.”
Smith was speaking of Breitbart’s websites, specifically, www.biggovernment.com. Shep Smith also took on the White House. He has a reputation for standing up for right and wrong, as he perceives it, even if it goes against the party line of Fox News.
Good for Shep Smith, the only commentator at Fox with abides by standards for good journalism.
It’s been fun to watch the NAACP and the Obama administration stumble all over themselves. Live by the “racism” sword, die by the “racism” sword.
It’s a shame what happened to Sherrod, and people are bending over backwards to correct the damage. However, I remember a radio personality or a congressman while on the radio who simply quoted a racial statement from someone else as an example, and was dragged through the coals for it without any apologies from anyone. His audio was taken out of context also, and it was proven as such. There still lies this double standard when it comes to race, and that is the source of the problem.
Capt, you don’t see any Breitbart connections out there do you? Did you hear him on Hannity? There is a man with issues.
This is more than one soundbite, this is an orchestrated effort to demonstrate that Obama is on “their” side. We all know what that means. He is one of “them” not one of “us”.
What I find frustrating is that this crazy pseudo “journalism” is working. Anyone remember “death panels” and killing old people? Anyone remember the hysteria of healthcare? Not a reasoned debate, but a concerted effort to make crazy hysterical talk somehow credible. It worked and the Obama administration is right to be afraid of Fox news. Their propoganda works, it works because they play on people fears.
Shep generally stands many feet above his colleagues. I expect he will move on. Its difficult being one of the only ones holding up a standard.
The repetitive Chavez/Putin-esq attacks on opposition news sources should concern all of you – the it is all their fault and they are racists is dangerous territory. FOX got it right, did the reporting, got it better in real time than any of the others, yet the White House and the NAACP got snookered by Fox – huh ?? That is purposeful, it is a lie and it is politically dangerous. No worries.
TP, what on earth are you talking about?
Fox is a Media Outlet, not a news source. And no, it didn’t get it right. The videos posted are the proof. If you choose not to watch them, I cannot help that.
Continue to rely on brain vampiring sources if you want. You simply won’t have any credibility.
As far as Putin and Chavez, you have the wrong country. I am very much concerned over my own, thank you very much.
Those are Big blinders your are wearing there Moon.
@TP Any blinders I am wearing are to help block trolls.
Because you say it doesn’t make it right. Did you bother to watch any of the videos that confirm what is being said here? Pay careful attention to time/date stamps.
Fox News is an opinion outlet. It doesn’t deliver unbiased news. There is nothing else to say.
The first fox news involvement I can prove other than on Maddow’s tapes which no one bothered to check is from Rick at 5:27 on July 19th which is a Monday. Hello posted earlier in the afternoon but his post was not from Faux News.
And it’s time to call out Breitbart for not just participating in shoddy journalism, but for willfully and maliciously distoring facts. He is basically just a scheming liar by all accounts. He will get away with it as long as some people’s desire to justify their beliefs with faux facts triumphs over their sense of decency.
http://www.salon.com/news/andrew_breitbart/index.html?story=/opinion/feature/2010/07/22/media_response_breitbart_sherrod_open2010
Moon, just some thoughts here. Let me approach this whole thing from a slightly different direction. In previous posts I pointed out that the portion of the video in question — the episode about Sherrod and the White farmer — did not strike me instinctively in a negative way because I viewed the entire speech. What did anger me was a later part of that speech in which she went into the same tired blather about how opposition to the health care reform bill was mean-spirited and Republican opposition to Obama was based on the fact that Obama is Black. That kind of claptrap I have had up to the gills and I am totally sick of it. In my view, it is as if some in this country have gone into a time warp and wound up back in the atmosphere of McCarthyism, this time using race rather than ideology. Her rumblings about a sort of class warfare between the haves and the have-nots did not help either. It seemed to me that the personal “redemption” Sherrod expressed with regard to her own attitudes concerning that White farmer was lost somewhat when she added the kind of racial and class accusations which are currently driving many honest citizens in the opposition to real anger.
But, back to that White farmer. It seems to me that we have developed a sort of generational gap in this country when it comes to more recent American history. You and I are old enough to have actually lived through the pre-civil rights and the civil rights eras. So has George. You grew up in a segregated state. George has posted elsewhere some good stories about being raised in Oklahoma during the pre-civil rights era. I lived in the North, but had close kin in the Deep South. I experienced that “special status” of being White in the Deep South. When we went to town I quickly learned what public restrooms, drinking fountains, benches, restaurants, et al were reserved for which skin color. I heard all the derogatory statements and names which were a normal part of conversation. I heard the negative comments. I knew the local sheriff was a man of power and that the Blacks were absolutely scared of him and his deputies. Anyway, you and George know all this as well. Even at my home in the North, although the schools, the athletic teams, the workplaces, and organizations like the Boy Scouts were all integrated even before the civil rights era, there was still that strange situation of not having any Blacks actually living in your neighborhood. I played side by side with Blacks on sports teams; but, after the games were over, we always went home in opposite directions. As I have stated elsewhere, my own father was instrumental in breaking the “mortgage barrier” which enabled this unseen housing discrimination in our town, and he paid a heavy price with regard to his personal friendships because of it.
Quite frankly, when I viewed Sherrod’s entire speech, especially the part about her initial reaction to the White farmer, I found myself not focusing negatively on her racial attitudes toward the farmer but, rather, nodding my head in understanding. There is not a manjack among us regardless of skin color who would not have reacted in that same way had we had the same direct life experiences as Sherrod. To me this was a normal initial reaction. So much so that I never focused much at all on the audience applause, which also became an issue here. To me it looked like Sherrod had just awakened some understandably bitter memories. What I did notice, however, was the clapping of hands when Sherrod spoke of the role of religion in her “redemption.” That’s when I really noticed some of those audience hands coming together very enthusiastically.
I think that we have been sort of remiss in passing knowledge of this era on to succeeding generations. I find that these generations often know next to nothing about such things as the pre-civil rights era in the South, the agonies of the Korean War, the actual struggle for civil rights, the conflict over the Vietnam War, and a whole lot of other things which we actually experienced in our own lifetimes. It seems to me that many of these young politicos on both sides — and I count Breitbart as one of them, since he was not born until 1969 — just do not have a truly accurate sense of recognition when someone like Sherrod reminisces about those eras. All they see are statements seemingly relevant to the modern political struggle. I’m not sure they have the kind of in-depth knowledge which would allow them to have the same reaction which I had to that particular part of Sherrod’s speech. Although I am White and she is Black, I do remember what happened in that time and I am able to relate somewhat to her personal life experiences. I could readily see where she was coming from on that. It seems to me that, given the quick political reaction and decision to fire Sherrod in the White House and at the USDA over this, that same historical leavening was also missing there. Everybody on both sides of the aisle is just getting to be too quick on the trigger those days.
@Starryflights
>>>Good for Shep Smith, the only commentator at Fox with abides by standards for good journalism.
Yea, he’s a real gem. Quite a temper though!
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/mugshots/dsmithmug1.html
and now, Rush goes after Shep – http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2010/07/23/2010-07-23_rush_limbaugh_fox_news_host_shepard_smith_had_no_guts_on_shirley_sherrod_coverag.html
Wolverine, thank you. I totally agree with you. I doubt any of us could have our father killed by the KKK or any other organization like that and not come away very bitter people.
And I don’t think younger people have that collective memory from pre civil war days. Even what we didn’t personally experience, we heard about from parents and TV, even if in passing. You hit upon something that people today overlook. That is even in the north, people tended to go in different directions at the end of the day. (and still do in many cases)