(Note: RealClearPolitics has since updated the post in question.)

In defending the media against conservative charges of bias in the Herman Cain scandal, Carl Cannon, Washington editor of RealClearPolitics, claims today that Andrew Breitbart did the same thing to Anthony Weiner that Jonathan Martin of Politico did to Cain–make a broad, salacious claim based on one piece of evidence, and wait for the truth to emerge.

Cannon writes:

I don’t remember conservative commentators agonizing over the journalistic ethics practiced by conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart in the Weiner “sexting” case. Acting on a hunch, Breitbart threw a salacious picture on his site, asserted he had evidence that it was Weiner, and let the blogosphere do the rest. And when it was clear that Weiner was misbehaving, and lying about it, the mainstream media basically hectored this guy into telling the truth, which he ultimately did — at the cost of his career in Congress.

That is, emphatically, not what happened in Weinergate. It is a gross distortion–an inversion, even–of what happened. In fact, Andrew and the entire team at Big Government and Big Journalism were meticulously careful in Weinergate, because we knew that as conservatives, we would be held to a different and higher standard than the mainstream media.

It is worth pointing out that Anthony Weiner outed himself, publicly tweeting the infamous “grey underwear” picture to a woman in the Seattle area. Big Journalism’s first story on Weinergate reported that fact, and noted that Weiner had claimed his Facebook account had been “hacked.” Weiner’s “hacking” claim, in itself, made the story newsworthy. Neither Andrew nor anyone else at the Bigs, at that point, claimed to have definitive proof that the person in the photograph was Weiner himself.

Other evidence, publicly available through Weiner’s Twitter profile and Facebook account, suggested the congressman had been communicating with other young women. When Andrew made that allegation on CNN, making clear the source and basis for his claim, the network attacked his credibility and brought analyst Jeffrey Toobin on air to declare Andrew’s story “outrageous.”

What Andrew did not reveal was that at the time of Weiner’s errant tweet, we already had evidence that Weiner had been involved in an online relationship with a woman in Texas, who claimed to have even more pictures of Weiner. As Andrew details in a forthcoming new chapter of his book, Righteous Indignation: Excuse Me While I Save the World, to be released in the book’s paperback edition, we spent several days researching that story before releasing it.

We could have done what Martin and Politico did–and which Cannon wrongly accuses us of doing: report that we knew of an inappropriate relationship, and allow the media to ask Weiner the tough questions. Except that we knew they wouldn’t, because Weiner is a Democrat, and we are a conservative news source. We had also been reluctant to pursue a story that seemed, until Weiner’s “hacking” allegation, to be solely about Weiner’s personal life.

Politico had no such scruples.

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Move along. Nothing to see here.

The existence of the JournoList should surprise no one.

I don’t know everybody on the list, but many of the names are easy to recognize and these are all the usual suspects. “JournoLists” combining with a common goal, to spread a leftist agenda.

That Paul Krugman agrees with Joe Klein, who agrees with JeffreyToobin, who agrees with David Brock should shock no one.

The Diamond brothers, Thomas Walsh and Lucky Luciano -- ahead of their time

As a journalist I would never in a million years think to plan, organize, compile and collate stories among those whom I see as my competition. I want to beat them on stories, I want to break stories they don’t have and I want to report on angles they had never thought of. I like to do that here on Big Journalism I can read the other articles and admire the work I see and always try to come up with something better. I believe in competition. I love competition.

Besides, I might have a tough time finding a couple dozen conservatives in the media to collude with, much less the 400 or willing mainly Upper West Side white males who were part of the JournoList. I’ve have seen a hundred times more diversity at a Tea Party rally. (more…)

One of the nastiest episodes in American journalism occurred in the immediate aftermath of John McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate during the 2008 election. It was a potential game-changer and, for a moment, it rocked the leftist media back on its heels. Who can ever forget Andrea Mitchell’s gaping-fish-out-of-water reaction to Palin’s electrifying acceptance speech? For one brief, horrible moment, the Marxist Media saw its dream of a People’s Republic dying, shot through the heart by the moose-hunting mom from Nowhere, Alaska.

Soon enough, though, the counter-attack began… almost as if it was co-ordinated.  And you know what? It was! From the Daily Caller:

In the hours after Sen. John McCain announced his choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be his running mate in the last presidential race, members of an online forum called Journolist struggled to make sense of the pick. Many of them were liberal reporters, and in some cases their comments reflected a journalist’s instinct to figure out the meaning of a story.

Joe Conason, JournoList member

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We have finally reached the number one, most left-biased journalist in America today on our top ten count down and our most biased journo pick probably won’t surprise any of you. Even though she just “retired” due to her outrageous bias and hatred for Israel, we just have to give the number one most biased slot to the ever-vitriolic Ms. Helen Thomas, long time employee of United Press International (UPI) and the Hearst New Service.

Thomas was an over 50-year employee of UPI but in the year 2000 she quit the wire service because it was bought by News World Communications which is affiliated with the Unification Church. She was proud of herself, though, because according to her she was “never, never accused of bias” in her reporting.

I worked for United Press International for more than fifty years, and I wrote straight copy. I was never, never accused of bias. I did not bow out of the human race. I permitted myself to care, to believe, to think. But I assure you, I assure you that it did not get in my copy.

But that isn’t what her record says. Bias was epidemic throughout. In May of 2000 the MRC went back and found at least half a dozen instances where Thomas readily revealed her bias. Instances range from Ronald Reagan’s days in office up to the year 2000 when she quit UPI.

The MRC found in part: (more…)

The MSM is usually quick to tut-tut about the sexual peccadilloes of public figures, especially if they’re conservatives or Republicans — Mark Foley, whoever you are or were, come on down!  But when the frisky Lothario turns out to be a Democrat, they’ll either defend him to til the last dog dies (Bill Clinton, take a bow!) or just ignore the story altogether (smile for the cameras, John Edwards).

Occasionally they get into a little hot water in the love department themselves.  Never mind for a moment the vast interlocking network of media biggies sleeping with their sources — say hello, Bianna Golodryga, currently the fiancee of Obama Administration budget director Peter Orszag, who’s just been tapped to co-host the weekend edition of ABC’s Good Morning America — we’ll get to them another time.  But it does seem that the late Abe Rosenthal’s “elephants” rule has long since passed into history, along with Abe himself.

Now comes CNN legal analyst and New Yorker writer Jeffrey Toobin, who years ago wrote a notable book on the O.J. Simpson case and hasn’t done much of anything since, except, well,  this.  From the New York Daily News:

Baby drama! CNN star Jeffrey Toobin offered Casey Greenfield money for abortion: sources

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