A good faith search of the Media Matters for America website found that the term ”heavily edited” was used no less than 4 times in this article and 5 more times [captured in screen caps below the fold] to describe a video or videos that are not edited in any way whatsoever.
Both videos clearly represent full unedited excerpts of Sharon Sherrod’s speech before the NAACP.
To refer to full excerpts as “heavily edited” or even “edited” is misleading and not true.
We respectfully request that Media Matters For America correct the record.
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57 Comments
Maybe they're talking about the compression for online streaming. The video sure is quite different from the original camera feed.
You'll get a correction from Media Matters at approximately the same time that Hell freezes over.
Cool Heavily edited. Easy to fix Post the raw and unedited version. This is not an insult. I suspect Breitbart is too lazy to edit. The raw is juicy enough without edit. If you really edit, then there is a lot of work and energy justifying and denying it.
this is what military types call a Charlie Foxtrot…
Please don't ask what it means, but it is bad. And everyone seems to have 'stepped in it' so to speak. Mr Breitbart is FAR to savvy of an operator to fall for the old bait and switch. Why would he further something that he obviously knew to be fraudulent? After two years of building a pretty damn good reputation this story was flat out not worth it.
No, this is one of two things. An accident- an out of control, careening car wreck of a story that everyone got wrong.
It happens.
If not, then this is a trap- he was given a deliberately edited version and was set up for a fall. VERY Machiavellian.
But we'll go with the accident. It fits the Idiot/incompetence paradigm we have come to see as the normal course of events- for this Administration…
Andrew is keeping to the message he revealed when the ACORN mess was unfolding. "We have a lot more tapes, the closer we get to the election the more we will reveal". The MSM thought he was talking about ACORN. Obviously he wasn't. The MSM attack his premise, he presents another tape to bolster the first. The "dweebs" never learn. Mess with the truth, the truth will bite you. HARD!
It would appear that the leftest media is having trouble getting a taste of their own medicine. As as 'editing' videos to support an argument, I dare they start down that road……..they've got a lot more coming to them.
The tapes weren't edited. They were full excerpts. That's simply a fact.
Or, Dcase…
The whole story isn't out yet, and AB is just providing a little more rope. I don't believe he would risk his rep for this story, and I think more is at play here.
I could be mistaken.
Mr. Nolte,
Love your work, but I saw in your Atlas Shrugged story that you said that you hadn't read it. I'll admit, it's a tough read, but hop aboard brother. It's a classic.
ABSOLUTELY!!!! Excerpting 2.5 minutes from a 45 minute speech isn't "heavy" editing at all. If anything, it's "medium" editing. "Heavy" editing would be excerpting a 2 second clip with Sherrod saying the words "white farmer", with the same resulting freak out.
Sigh. Are we still discussing this nonstory?
Go Retracto ….
The Journolist caper proves they're all liars. Media Matters is the official Soros site paid for by the Tea Party taxpayers.
We want the $1 billion of our stimulus money back from Soros who took it to create offshore drilling jobs in Brazil. I'm positive not a dime ended up in the pocket of Media Matters. Moochers and looters.
Shep Smith said virtually the same words written above, while adding that he "didn't trust the source", BG.
If you don't want to discuss it, feel free to ignore any threads on conservative websites that are.
Actually, the difference lies within the words themselves. Editing implies correction or revision. An excerpt implies a passage or segment taken from within a larger work. It's English 101 stuff, really.
Truth. I'm with D'Anconia. Read "Atlas Shrugged". It's a long book, but well worth it. That book changed my life.
meaning what? They were edited by Big Government?
What did Media Matters say about the NAACP racist charge against the tea party?
And isn't a 501C4 supposed to be non-partisan?
"Heavily edited" describes a Mikey Moore crockumentary — slicing and splicing. What Andrew's source did in this case was extract a couple of segments, each several minutes long, from a 45 minute video. But if you look at the entire video, it's still pretty racist. Regardless, the focus of the story is not the civil servant.
The story is about the celebration of racism which infects the NAACP, just like it infects Reverend Wright's "church", and just like it infects Barry and Michelle, who are enthusiastic patrons of both.
This is what makes Obama's jihad against bogus "racism" in the Tea Party so hypocritical and so thoroughly disgusting to decent folks.
I think the flimsy, well-worn race card is just about done. The Libs have called "wolf" one time too many. The last time the race card fooled anyone was the O.J. jury.
Everyone knows what "heavily edited" means, and everyone knows these tapes weren't edited at all. They are excerpts. .
Most of the liberals at Media Matters are "Heavily Drugged". They are going to lose the argument and the country this November, so I say to them "piss off you commie bastards!"
You've got to be kidding me. This from a group who's affiliated Center for American Progress produced a heavily edited video trying to prove the tea partiers were racist. What they pieced together was a less than a minute video of completely non-racist statements with one racist statement in it. The statement was "I'm a proud racist" which they showed twice (lack of material anyone?) and which was said by someone who was rather painfully obviously a left wing plant. The portion of the video showing the real tea partiers calling him out and telling him to go home is conveniently edited out.
So, screw you, Media Blathers.
"In meeting with Acorn, he presented himself not as a pimp but as a law student trying to rescue his prostitute girlfriend from a pimp. Yet the narrative presented by Breitbart took hold from the outset. When pressed, he claimed here too that he was the victim of deceptive editing. A similar tactic is at work in the Daily Caller's expose on Journolist. It is the selective presentation of fragments of data, containing multiple factual misstatements, and filtered through the reporter's deceptive analytical take, to present a "discovery" as something wildly at odds with reality. The story takes hold as news because it is, literally, new information. But the information bears no resemblance to what the conservative journalist claims it is."
-Jonathan Chiat, The New Republic
Wow these guys are really grasping at strawmen. Jonny baby, you guys now have been caught red-handed. Give up. Next you are proly going to deny that the ClimateGate emails had anything to do with creating bogus climate science.
Yeah, you really got the goods on Andrew, the guy posing as a pimp, didn't really wear a furry coat. How is that even relevant? Jeez. Grow up. No one with a brain is buying your goofy spin any more.
So the clips had multiple unspecified "factual misstatements" and "bear no resemblance" to the racism which everyone can clearly see, and which was celebrated by the NAACP. Golly, nice try.
"The problem is that the product of sites like Breitbart's Big Government and the Daily Caller is not journalism but pseudo-journalism. It does not hew to conventional journalistic standards."
-Jonathan Chiat
Is that what you claim to be doing with your one-sided tripe, Jonny? "Hewing to conventional journalistic standards"? What a crock.
Isn't it ironic that "The New Republic" was founded by Walter Lippmann, the father of modern propaganda.
I would like to see Media Matters post the entire video with sub-titles as it is hard to hear Sharrod at times. But she says many things that could be considered racist and the good folks in her audience either laugh or applauds her comments. Maybe the NAACP could explain their reaction to her speech. The fact that she went on Media Matters today and accused Fox news of being willing to send blacks back to the days of slavery speaks volumes of her racist ideas.
The fact that the folks on the right or who are like me, and consider themselves Libertarians, now see through all the Alinsky tactics and are onto the game. Call a person a racist to shut them up, but when your side is call onto the carpet… lie, ignore or distort. Even when you are caught on tape, claim editing. It does not work anymore because of folks like Glen Beck. Andrew Breitbart and a few others who have exposed the game and the game players
Yes, just like CNN even is. So is it still a nonstory?
Domo arigato Mr. Retacto!
Editing also means to expunge or eliminate, like, say, 42.5 minutes of video. English 101 stuff, really.
Media Mattersnot,, Just trying to discredit Breitbart… CNN tried already
We respectfully request that Media Matters For America correct the record.
Such a simple distinction: edited vs excerpted. I was on the phone with a friend last night trying to explain the difference between the two terms. I wasn't successful. People believe what they want to believe.
"Media Matters for America is a Web-based, not-for-profit, 501(c)(3) progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media."
Ah, yes, an organization, which by self-definition is "heavily edited" solely against a single particular political point-of-view, criticizing Breitbart material for being "heavily edited."
Kind of fits the paradigm of the whole "racism" mess the liberals have got going here.
I'll offer a third option, and that is that you have fallen for the Liberal spin and taken the bait. This story was always about the NAACP approving of a racist story before ever learning of a change of heart. You've allowed the Left to distract you, and you are now just another useful idiot.
Congratulations.
I know I would, and I suspect others could use a DEFINITION of editing.
Is it EDITING to cut a tape off for length without altering anything on either side of the cut? Is that considered a no-no in journalism?
Is it the same thing as "cutting?" I think we all know what that is. Witness the story last week where "someone" chopped, cut, pasted, and by rearranging images and sound "created proof" of Tea Party racism. To me THAT'S EDITING in the same sense Mr B's being accused of editing the Sherrod tape. Pejoratively, falsely attempting to make events appear different than they were.
Is there such a thing as editing for "effect." which is what I believe happened with the original version posted here two days ago. The tape ran long enough for Ms Sherrod to say racist words, admit to racist thoughts and behavior, and TO HEAR HER NAACP AUDIENCE VOICE AGREEMENT AND APPLAUD HER RACIST ACTION.
Then the tape abruptly ended. This was not "falsifying" or "fabricating" events. It was like someone pausing in a speech…..to allow the EFFECT of what they said sink in and in this case to demonstrate the NAACP AUDIENCE APPROVAL OF IT.
The FULL version so far shows NO VARIATION in images or progression of dialog up to that point. It just continues on. Ms Sherrod moves on in a normal thought thread, her position doesn't jump, the sound quality doesn't change, nothing happens except…the rest of the speech continues.
What kind of editing was the original video here called? It certainly backs up Mr B's story that he was merely mirroring the NAACP claim that some Tea Party members are racist by showing some NAACP members are too. That's not devious.
On looking back, I wish it had continued on long enough not to put Ms Sherrod in a position to look like the focus of the piece. By cutting where they did, Mr B now has to tell folks what the point of the whole article was…..hence the poster's claim that this is a CF….just a plan gone wrong due to unintended consequences, in this case LSM seizing on the fact it was edited at all, and of course the impact it had….AND IMPACT BROUGHT ABOUT BY THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION, BTW, NOT MR B…..but shooting the messenger.
This is one of those stories where the more you say, the worse things get. Leave it out there. Let those who claim it was heavily edited prove their charge. Looks like the WH is the one that rushed to judgment. Looks like her bosses were the one's who found her guilty without so much as a trial. Looks like they're all backpeddling now to cover their own knee jerk reactions to just a short piece of a long tape.
Looks like Obama, the WH, and the gov't are the ones sitting and spinning. LET THEM. You can't win by talking. Just let them play whack a mole with each other like the three stooges till the story peters out.
AFTER ALL THE NAACP HAS BEEN OUTTED ABOUT BEING RACIST AND THEY HAVE STFU ABOUT TEA PARTY RACISTS. WAS THAT NOT THE WHOLE POINT?
Bye troll.
You should ask yourself that question.
Here's a motif for you….Cheetos!
Shep Smith is a leftist.
For the left, the truth doesn't matter. You know that by now, John.
I respectfully request that George Soros be locked up for his attempted gerrymandering of your political process through this hack organization.
and you are sure of this? We stand by our post…
This is a story will just keep on giving we just need to keep grinding the organ on this one. So many fun points. I've run region operations for several top 100 US companies that included handling many large staffs. Crazy stuff happens and the 1st rule is protect the company from lawsuits. By private sector standards, Sherrod would never be speaking in front of a group saying she discriminated ever against anybody…can you say LAWSUIT! Next listen to the whole tape go ahead you'll find details that would make a private sector HR person explode. Vilsacks first statement was the correct statement…never back off that statement…their 2nd statement they just admitted guilt and lost lawsuit in the real world,(they likely told her she would get big money settlement to go away in the first place) he was right in his statement wrong in his decision process…so you fire him too, but never backing off original statement. SO NOW THE KEEPS ON GIVING PART: They asked her back… flip flop…now every word ever captured in writing or tape they have to live with. This is the best trap of all…made a bad decision….then reviewed make another bad decision….then followed that by making another bad decision to rehire her and have to live with her words. 3 bad decisions on an everyday private sector matter. Shows the utter lack of basic business management skills…shows that management willingly and stupidly exposes the company to reckless lawsuits. Bad management decisions put her in this position in the first place, complete revelation of total lack of leadership insight, total lack of leadership control of upper and mid management decision tree processes. From Private sector position this matter is a company killer, really you could bankrupt a large company with this type of exposure to publicity and damage awards.
Who is "we"?
Did you even read the original article at all? Or did you just watch the video and develop your opinion without reading anything Breitbart wrote like The Anchoress and 90% of the conservative blogosphere did?
I quote it again since your skull is apparently corroded from all the tin-foil over the years. You aren't helping your cause when your reading comprehension is an Epic Fail.
'we' are the small group who input on this site. This story is still unfolding, and apparently there is other video showing Ms Sherrod to be a far left class warfare zealot. 'Our' post, which you misunderstand because you reacted without really reading it,is simply the reaction of an incompetent Administration to a story that hasn't yet metastasized.
So, you can wrap your head in tinfoil and go back from whence you came, nitwit…
Dealing with propagandists — as I frequently have — one learns very quickly that, when they are wrong, they will not correct themselves. They cannot ideologically afford to correct themselves — they proceed under the notion that they are smarter than their opponents. To admit that they have made a mistake — or lied — undermines their entire ideological position. They will never do this — to them, EVERYTHING is about ideological gain.
Two words. Dan Rather.
He got, shall we say, overzealous with a story, didn't vet it, and was hounded from his career, which had a lot more credible years behind it than Andrew's has. If Mr. Breitbart want to run with the big dogs, he has to deal with the same sort of accountability. Nobody forced him to run with the story. If he was punked, that also speaks to his credibility.
As to the topic of this story, while "heavily" may be a bit hyperbolic, to claim that cutting a piece of video down, trimming top and tail to show the desired clip, isn't editing is simply untrue and dishonest. It is the very definition of the word.
An excerpt is, by definition, an edited form. That is simply a fact. To claim otherwise is simply wrong.
You seem a bit foggy yourself. I'll give you that the "heavily" is overstating it, but cutting tops and tails is most definitely editing, especially when it's taking a short piece.
From the OED,
Yes. By definition.
Whether or not such editing is nefarious or not is another question entirely.
Trying to redefine a word with well known professional usage isn't going to be terribly successful. It winds up looking like someone with their fingers in their ears going la-la-la-I-can't-hear-you. Not the best way to bolster credibility. There are other, more solid ways to do that
Just,
I wasn't trying to redefine the word. I really don't know anything about the world of video. The reason I asked is because of the statements in the thread above our posts. The words cutting and editing seem to mean different things and I just didn't know enough to understand what each means.
I thought editing meant like cutting and pasting around to get a different "gist" or to change context, not just cutting 40 minutes LENGTH off a piece.
"Editing" is a fairly broad term. The entry from the OED,
So, any cutting is editing. Editing in print can deal only with page formatting, and leave content completely alone, though it generally means that someone has at least read it through for glaring errors, and can go as far as major rewrites.
"Heavily edited" seems to imply a bit more, like stitching clips together, but cutting the whole conclusion of a story out to leave its meaning up to interpretation could be considered "heavy" though "heavy-handed" might be more to the point. You don't really need to string things together to change the gist. Just showing a short window without the frame can do the job admirably. There is plenty of history of that. If, for instance, someone were to take a clip of Mr. Breitbart where he says "People are falsely saying that I'm racist!" and cut it down to a simple, "I'm racist!" it sort of changes the meaning a bit. It's just nipping a bit off the front, but…
So, yeah, I just think that saying it wasn't edited looks silly. It was. Go to the meat of it instead.
Proof that Media Matters does not Matter.
The way this has played out is no surprise. Honestly, I don't buy the "I don't have it" line on the original. I think think it was perfectly executed. We know they cannot think, so they will sever her instead of embarrassing the real target, the NAACP. Hell, the NAACP will speak out against her. Then we'll release the full video. NAACP will have egg on it's face, as will the administration. All we need to do is post two unedited snippets and stand back. Maybe Breitbart just got lucky, but I think too highly of him to think it was anything short of a brilliant setup.
Welcome to the United States of America, heavily edited with a lost context. Nobody knows where we came from or where we're going, and any inconvenient truths, when documented, are really just heavily edited.
ProTip: Breitbart needs to distinguish LOUDLY the diff between editing and altering. The video is unaltered, except for format. All news clips and 99% of interviews are "heavily edited" even if they are still unaltered.
Well, Brietbart didn't expunge or eliminate anything. He played what he had. Whoever gave it to him either "edited" himself/herself, or that's all they could get.
NAACP had the FULL VIDEO and somehow still jumped in to the overreaction and then tried to say they were snookered – by not taking the time to view the entire video they possessed!
I swear to God I'm living in frellin' bizzaro world!
this story is not over yet; and Mr Breitbart- who has run a VERY smart shop so far- will have his say…
If the full speech is not presented, it is ipso facto edited. Excerpts are editing. Especially excerpts that totally reverse the meaning of what she had to say is editing. Perhaps you should apologize to Media Matters?
OMG, you unfairly turned a woman's life upside down and YOU have the gall to play the "unfair attack" card? YOU PEOPLE ARE PSYCHOTIC!!!! This is why the average tea bagger is probably 60 years old, you've lost an entire generation! It was "heavily edited" (not necessarily by Breitbart, but certainly by his source for the video) because you didn't show in what context she made those supposedly "racist comments". History is going to look at you people the same way we look at the KKK of the early 20th century- a bunch of right wing kooks.
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