Barker Blows It
The Post-Dispatch's Tim Barker posted a story early this morning on last week's smear of two Missouri instructors by Andrew Breitbart's BigGovernment.com website. Yet as Adam Shriver points out, Barker really drops the ball when it comes to reporting the known facts about the videos.
The sum total of Barker's "reporting" on the fact that the videos are obvious hit jobs sliced up to misrepresent reality is contained in this sentence: "[Officials at UMKC] have criticized the Internet videos, saying their editing put the instructors' comments out of context."
Um, yeah. UMKC provost Gail Hackett said the videos totally distorted the instructors' comments by "taking their statements out of context and reordering the sequence in which those statements were actually made so as to change their meaning."
And since the Star published UMKC's response last Thursday, extended video clips have been made public, and all of them are available to Barker. Readers aren't informed of this fact, or even given any indication that Barker has watched the longer segments.
Should Barker wish to update his woefully incomplete reporting, here are a few links worth clicking:
- Breitbart Starts Big Push To "Go After Teachers" With His Trademark Deception (Media Matters)
- Breitbarted Again? BigGovernment Uses Deceptively Edited Video To Smear University Professors (Crooks & Liars)
- Judy Ancel and colleague were framed by Breitbart (Star)
- Video posted online prompts threats to UMKC professor (Star)
- MU Faculty Council feedback sought about release of controversial videos (Columbia Missourian)
- Missouri Lieutenant Governor Accuses Labor Professors Of "Terrorism" (PoliticalCorrection.org)
- University says Internet video distorted labor lecturers' meaning (Star)
- KC university supports lecturer in video flap (AP)
- Peter Kinder irresponsibly sides with Breitbart (Star )
- Judy Ancel and colleague were framed by Breitbart (Star)
- The Shirley Sherrods of Academe? (Inside Higher Ed)
- Judy Ancel's Statements on the Breitbart/Loesch Smear Attacks (St. Louis Activist Hub)
- Big Government Lies About Edits (St. Louis Activist Hub)
Our Liberal Media strikes again.
