How Andrew Breitbart Hacks the Media

[Ragnar]

How Andrew Breitbart Hacks the Media | Magazine
By Noah Shachtman- Wired- April 2010

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Until last September, the beefy 41-year-old with graying blond hair was a largely covert power in the right-wing media, the hidden hand behind the popular Drudge Report who also, weirdly, co-founded the liberal Huffington Post. But then he struck out on his own. Today his collection of Web sites draws more than 10 million readers a month. He has a book deal worth more than half a million dollars, and he’s a regular presence on Fox News — where he’s headed later tonight, in fact. The covert thing is out the window.

-snip-

For someone who claims to hate the “Democrat-media complex,” Breitbart sure knows how to work it. Few people are better at packaging information for maximum distribution and impact. He is, depending on whom you ask, either the “leading figure in this right-wing creation of a parallel universe of lies and idiotic conspiracy theories” (that was liberal critic Eric Boehlert of Media Matters for America) or “the most dangerous man on the right today” (from Michael Goldfarb, Republican consultant and former campaign aide to John McCain). Breitbart is, in short, expert in making the journalism industry his bitch. “The market has forced me to come up with techniques to be noticed,” Breitbart says. “And now that I have them, I’m like, wow, this is actually great. This is fun.”

italic's mine -snip-

One thing Breitbart will say about Drudge, though, is that his mentor introduced him to Arianna Huffington, then a right-wing pundit and Drudge confidant. Breitbart became her researcher and Web guru. By her side, he learned that the media could be more than scooped — it could be hacked. The first exploit was almost an accident: In September 1998, he suggested that Drudge and Huffington go to the embezzlement trial of former Clinton business associate Susan McDougal. The Los Angeles Times took note of their attendance the next day in a headline and a few sentences in the Metro section. Publicists have been pulling similar tricks since silent-movie days, sending celebrity clients to public events. But to Breitbart, the move was a revelation. “You can play the media. You can force them to cover things,” he says. “This is not just stenography. There’s a performance art to it.”

Breitbart started looking for ways to attract the spotlight to himself. In 2004, he and journalist Mark Ebner wrote the book Hollywood, Interrupted, which excoriated the drug habits and vapid liberalism of many stars. Breitbart emerged as a conservative spokesperson with a passion for the culture wars not seen since the Lewinsky years.

Tons more at the link but I don't want to bring over to much via cut and paste. It's a longish (by entertoobs standards) article but it's a nice bit of history on a true phenomenon. If your one of the millions who travel about Breitbart sights and/or (like me) see him often on Red Eye (thanks hulu) then you should get a kick out of the article. It's far from all praise or fluff but IMO it's a fairly written article.

He had a little more to do with the Huff and Puff Blog than I knew, though maybe a little less than he claims, lol. For those who did not know, and I'm one of them, "How Andrew Breitbart Hacks the Media" includes a little bit of an insiders take on an upcoming new video from O’Keefe and fellow activist Joe Basel. This time its HUD and the media's hum drum attitude to the next possible scandal. All told Wired's Shachtman put together a good read. Enjoy enjoyers...

 

[CrusaderFrank]

The LMSM put themselves out of business when they because the Ministry of Truth for the Dem Party.

The NY Times and WA Post will be internet only within 3 1/2 years and the "Big 3" networks will consolidate into a single outlet broadcasting the exact same state approved "News", just like they already do. Why spend money pretending to be a news organization?

 

[Ragnar]

The LMSM put themselves out of business when they because the Ministry of Truth for the Dem Party.

The NY Times and WA Post will be internet only within 3 1/2 years and the "Big 3" networks will consolidate into a single outlet broadcasting the exact same state approved "News", just like they already do. Why spend money pretending to be a news organization?

That was a pretty fast (if largely correct) synopsis if you don't mind my saying.

I think it was Mark Steyn who said some time ago that the NYT would have to change it's moniker from "all the news that's fit to print" to "all the news that fits". lol The liberal bias aside (for the moment) the old media has been way to slow to jump on the technology train.

In my opinion the media lost its way for good decades ago. It's a bit glamorized now but recall the days of the old beat reporters, multiple city newspapers and streetwise reporters. For a long time we have had establishment reporters, Journalism school graduates who came to newspapers with pre-formed ideologies who cram news events into their own views rather than objective reporting. The whole process of how this can happen is described well by Ayn Rand in "The Establishing of an Establishment” from Philosophy: Who Needs It.
Government Grants and Scholarships — AynRand Lexicon

It's great to see how Breitbart and others (from all sides) can use the old school ways to bring about the demise of the MSM. I agree it's just a matter of time but I would caution that we do need journalist with at least some training and objective standards. It's still a very chaotic peer review process. News aggregation still requires that good people are out there shaking the trees and doing the grunt work.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Bribert, Hannity Rush and Drudge dispense much more news than they have any right to. It just shows that what we thought was the "press" has now morphed into talk radio and the Internet; the old press is just a worn out set of slogans plastered on a board that few people bother to read anymore