Examining The Myth That Fox News Drove Shirley Sherrod To Resign

It’s beyond a stretch to say Breitbart and FNC were working in tandem, despite the conservative web moguls’ appearances on the network. Breitbart has been everywhere this week – MSNBC, NBC, CNN, ABC…even Charlie Rose. To group Breitbart with Fox News is to group him with the rest of the mainstream media who gave him a platform.

None of this excuses the ugly attempt to smear Sherrod by Breitbart – and it was a clear attempt, since the text before the original video purposely makes it sound like Sherrod is describing her current role. Even more specious was his explanation (on Hannity and on GMA) behind airing the video – that in presenting Sherrod’s video as he did was somehow retribution for the NAACP resolution regarding the Tea Party and racism.

> Update: Some in the comments are saying I’m wrong about Breitbart’s original video. Watch it now. The text before the clip begins, but in the YouTube video, says, “Ms. Sherrod admits in her federally appointed position, overseeing over a billion dollars…she discriminates against people due to their race.” As we now know, this is 100% false.

But Breitbart got lucky: the Obama administration and USDA jumped the gun and overreacted, as did the NAACP, shifting the story from the how the video was presented out of context and how Sherrod was “railroaded by the White House” as FNC’s James Rosen reported on Tuesday. They come out tarnished, and Breitbart less so. And Fox News prematurely ran with the pre-context video too. On their opinion programs Monday night, and on some of their news shows Tuesday. But on Tuesday, the rest of the media did too. You can’t point the finger at Fox and ignore the culpability of the competition

We were having discussions about FNC and race before all this broke – that New Black Panther yelling about killing white babies has disappeared entirely this week. These are legitimate discussions to have. But just because FNC has tread dangerously into stirring the race pot doesn’t mean they did it here.

Whether we’re still talking about Shirley Sherrod next week or not depends on her decision to return to her job. But if she remains in the news, a continued boycott of Fox News will look less reasonable. We know Shepard Smith would love to tell her “sorry”…and thank you.

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