July 22, 2010 09:04 PM UTC

Latest Conservative Blogosphere Takedown Misfires Badly

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• by: Colorado Pols

Although it’s not directly related to Colorado politics, it’s an interesting case study of a subject we care very much about. The developing story of video released by conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart, purporting to show a USDA official admitting to reverse prejudice against white people but in fact heavily edited from remarks that seem to indicate the exact opposite, is making a whole lot of people on the right side of the media, old and new, look really bad. The Hill with the latest:

The government is being sometimes “held hostage” by Fox News and other media outlets, the chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus charged Thursday.

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), the chairwoman of the caucus, said she was concerned that outlets like Fox were creating a culture of “misinformation” that has led to controversies like the one following Shirley Sherrod.

The edited video had first been posted on Big Government, the website of the conservative activist and pundit Andrew Breitbart. He has since acknowledged that the video was edited, but said it was presented to him that way, and has denied editing it in-house…

Republican operatives, working with fully complicit media figures, enjoyed a string of successes in ‘exposing’ allegedly illegal or radical involvement by organizations like the now-defunct ACORN, and officials such as former Obama appointee Van Jones. We’re not here to judge either of those two actions morally, or the response by Democrats in power, but this latest controversy involving edited video and clear deception is going to make the next person in charge think twice before demanding an immediate resignation. That robs these scandalous video releases, many of which are ameliorated a few news cycles later by proper context or exoneration in ensuing investigations, of their usefulness beyond firing up a low-information base.

And it’s a huge credibility hit for the budding conservative candid camera industry–we have a local affiliate, you know. And we know that they would never stoop to the level of editing video entirely out of any recognizable context just to score political points, right?

Just to be safe, we expect everybody will be double-checking now.