media matters

In Media Matters’ piece “Warning to the media: Breitbart bites the hand that feeds him” of June 2nd, the Senior Fellows falsely claim Andrew Breitbart “lashed out” at David Shuster (via a blog post at BigJournalism.com) after Breitbart had gone on the air for an interview with the MSNBC host.  Emphasis mine:

After a heated appearance on MSNBC, Breitbart accused David Shuster of tricking him into an appearance on the show and attacked Shuster’s objectivity. On January 28, following an interview about O’Keefe’s Louisiana arrest, Breitbart assailed host David Shuster for luring him “into this story based upon the false premise of his objective neutrality.”

Breitbart’s fisking of Shuster was posted online while the two were on the air together, not afterward.  Breitbart prepared the piece prior to going live with Shuster and in no way did the piece address the interview itself, just the events leading up to it.

The premise of Media Matter’s “Breitbart bites the hand that feeds him” piece is to demonstrate that Breitbart tends to report on the journalists to whom he grants interviews.  And why not?  We at BigJournalism are of the opinion that the media are frequently the message.  But whether or not you support MMFA’s thesis that Breitbart is mereley “lashing out” after interviews, the David Shuster example they reference is an invalid piece of evidence and should be omitted from a corrected version of the article.

We kindly request Media Matters for America issue a formal correction.