Leftist Sin? Breitbart Goes After Gawker Over Business Insider Report

Nothing aids the launch of a new website like a little bit of controversy! Not that Andrew Breitbart necessarily needs help in launching a website (or attracting attention) — he has a fairly good track record. Nevertheless, yesterday’s launch of Breitbart’s new site Big Journalism definitely made some unintended waves.

The short version: Earlier this week Business Insider’s senior media editor Gillian Reagan (she was recently plucked by BI from the New York Observer) interviewed Andrew Breitbart about his new media site Big Journalism (read our earlier interview here).

The interview ran early yesterday morning on Business Insider and was picked up by Gawker shortly thereafter (which is where I saw it). Breitbart apparently took umbrage to the interview for a couple of reasons: first off he felt he’d been misquoted (more on that later), and secondly after seeing the interview run on Gawker he concluded that Business Insider was some sort of “front” for Gawker. Said Breitbart in his post on the matter:

Let me begin with the biggest deception of all: Business Insider is a front for Gawker, the notorious leftist/media snark site. If she had been up front with me, like any sane person I never would have responded. (Go to www.Gawker.com to see why.) But she came to me under false pretenses. [And further down in the post]… I think that Gawker is using Business Insider as a front to get interviews with people who long ago stopped taking Gawker calls because Gawker is a hit-job operation. They officially call it a “partnership.” Pretty clever arrangement there, Mr. Denton.

Regular readers of both sites will likely know that Gawker and Business Insider have a content share deal with each other and from time to time Gawker runs Business Insider posts, in full, exactly how they appear in their original form and with the original byline (i.e. “Gillian Reagan – Business Insider”). Business Insider, which is run by Henry Blodget, has a number of content share deals and frequently runs posts from other sites (including Gawker), in full, which is why you will sometimes see eye-catching bylines like Eliot Spitzer on the site. The idea that Business Insider is a front for Gawker makes awesome copy, but is in reality far from true. After seeing this tweet I asked Gawker managing editor Gabriel Snyder to elaborate:

I am flattered that Andrew Breitbart wants to give me credit for running Business Insider in my spare time, but yes, we’ve only got a syndication deal with BI. The terms are pretty simple. If they see a story on our site they like, they can republish it. If I see a story on their site that I like, I can republish it on Gawker. They have a similar arrangement with Gizmodo. All of this is after the fact. We don’t tell each other what we’re working on.

So there’s that. Though Breitbart is technically correct in noting that content sharing is a great way to get your hands on content you might not otherwise be able to produce (say, in lieu of blockquoting). Also, it’s an increasingly common practice — sort of like the AP 2.0. Anyway, Breitbart’s real issue with the piece is that he felt that he’d been misquoted. A lot. The original article quoted him thusly: “My sites offer truth and hers [Arianna Huffington] offer leftist sin” (a quote which I admit caught my eye though, truthfully, I assumed it was meant tongue-in-cheek) also, “I’m very happy to be in competition with HuffPost, TPM or Politico,” he said. “I honestly don’t read those sites.” According to Breitbart he never said it at all or anything resembling this:

Asked about only putting out right-wing ideas I stated, in essence, “My Big sites are certainly right of center but I am not afraid of other ideas. And I am proud to have been a part of creating the Huffington Post to show that I strongly believe in the marketplace of the ideas.”

I do not recall Politico being brought up, but the absurdity of stating that I don’t read Politico would never fall out of my mouth even if I were drunk. (I wasn’t.) I also read the Huffington Post. I just tend not to agree with the ideas expressed there, although I do love their pictorial spreads of the gals of the French Open! But Ms. Reagan and I didn’t talk about political philosophy or tennis.

Apparently, Business Insider concurred with at least part of Breitbart’s contention that he was misquoted. The offending quotes have since been removed from original post and this update has been added:

*UPDATE: We previously published a quote from Breitbart referring to Huffington’s sites as “leftist sin.” We also wrote that he doesn’t read Politico. Breitbart disputes ever saying these things, so we’ve rephrased it.

And with that, Big Journalism makes it big media blog debut. You can read it here. You can read Business Insider here. And you can read Gawker here.

UPDATE (ours): Business Insider just posted this response, which interestingly states that Reagan did not tape the piece as Breitbart asserts. From Henry Blodget:

The interview notes taken by the story’s author, Gillian Reagan, included the “leftist sin” quote, but the interview was not taped. (At her prior job, Gillian recorded all calls automatically, but we have not yet installed this technology at the Business Insider–or made a decision about whether we will). After reviewing the situation, we concluded that Gillian might have misheard Breitbard and that Breitbart might, in fact, have said “leftist spin.”

We offered to make the change. Breitbart said he didn’t care what we did. We made the change anyway. We also retracted another assertion in the original post that Breitbart had disputed, which is that he had said he doesn’t read Politico. We noted these changes in the post, and we apologized for the errors.

We offered to make the change. Breitbart said he didn’t care what we did. We made the change anyway. We also retracted another assertion in the original post that Breitbart had disputed, which is that he had said he doesn’t read Politico. We noted these changes in the post, and we apologized for the errors.

Relatedly, we have a content-sharing agreement with Gawker.com: We occasionally run some of Gawker’s posts and Gawker occasionally runs some of ours. The republished posts are clearly labeled as having been written and published by each site, respectively. Yesterday, Gawker decided to run our Andrew Breitbart post.

Today, in a long post at his site, Andrew Breitbart says he thinks we are just a front for Gawker–a way for Gawker editors to get interviews with people who won’t talk to Gawker anymore. We aren’t. We reached out to Breitbart because we thought his new site was relevant to the business of journalism. Gawker then decided to run the post after the fact, independently. In a separate complaint, Breitbart also objects to our use of the image of him above, because he says it makes him look insane.

We apologize again if we misquoted Andrew Breitbart, and we wish him well with his new endeavors–including his “war” with leftist media.

Read the full response here.