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Fake video causes unjust firing

Posted on Jul 26, 2010 in Opinion

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Congress must pass new laws, with stiff penalties, for those who edit video and audio recordings in order to make it appear that the subject of that recording has broken the law.

This week on the conservative website biggovernment.com, blogger Andrew Breitbart reported that Shirley Sherrod, the head of rural development for the agriculture department in Georgia, had admitted to discriminating against a white couple.

Breitbart posted video, on biggovernment.com, which showed a speech by Sherrod in which she apparently admitted to the discrimination. This was his proof of her racism.

This spawned a race by the government and the mainstream media. It was a race to see who could best portray Sherrod as a racist.

Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and his department wasted no time in securing Sherrod’s resignation. It was important to the agriculture department to secure the resignation quickly. In fact, it was so important that the department forced Ms. Sherrod to submit her resignation via Blackberry.

Fox News and others portrayed Sherrod as the worst kind of racist. You know, the kind that hates white people. The only problem they had with their story is that it just was not true.

When the unedited video was released, it showed that the discrimination she spoke about was in fact not discrimination at all. It was part of a longer story where Sherrod considered discriminating against Roger and Eloise Spooner, white farmers from Iron City, Georgia. Instead, she received an epiphany; it was not a matter of race, it was a matter of helping the poor.

This led to a string of apologies from the agriculture department, the NAACP and a variety of news organizations. It led to Tom Vilsack offering her a new job at the agricultural department. What it did not lead to was an apology from the person who attempted to ruin her life, Andrew Breitbart.

It is really quite amazing that so many people were willing to take this information at face value. This is not the first time that Andrew Breitbart has posted video on his website that was altered to make it appear that someone had broken the law when they had not.

In September of 2009, Breitbart posted heavily edited video of James O’Keefe III and Hannah Giles portraying a pimp and his hooker. The video was an attempt to show that the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) had given the two advice on how to commit crimes and defraud the government. When the unedited video came out this past May, it completely vindicated ACORN; unfortunately, due to the political fall-out from the tapes, ACORN closed its doors in March.

This is the worst kind of political corruption and the worst kind of journalism. It is journalism that is used to obtain a specific political goal that is not in the best interest of the American people. It uses fraud and deceit in order gain political retribution against those whose philosophy differs from your own.

The ACORN videos were produced to destroy ACORN, not the individuals in the video. These new attacks were not aimed Sherrod, they were an attempt to cause problems for the NAACP. While Andrew Breitbart did not implicate himself in the editing of the film, he did say that the reason he posted the video was in retaliation for the NAACP passing a resolution condemning racism in the Tea Party.

As stated earlier, this is not the first time that Breitbart has posted this kind of extremely edited video. Authorities should launch a more detailed investigation into these tapes, and if this analysis finds that he took an active part in the editing of these videos, he should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. This should include paying restitution to Sherrod for the damage he caused to her reputation and the mental anguish she endured.

It would also be nice if the legitimate press could launch a campaign to investigate Breitbart’s part in the editing process. Perhaps they could invest as much time and energy into this investigation as they had previously invested in destroying Shirley Sherrod’s reputation.

The fact is we cannot allow people to perform this kind of political and journalistic fraud for the purpose of defaming a person or organization. We live in an era where there are many ways that someone can fake this kind of recording. We must take the time to ensure that these materials are legitimate before we destroy any person or organization.

Email: roncrumptons_opinion@live.com

 

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