In response to the announcement that I would provide my analysis on ABC News from Arizona on election night, like-clockwork, from the George Soros-funded Media Matters to Keith Olbermann to Huffington Post to Daily Kos to Talking Points Memo to Twitter (#boycottABCNEWS), the institutional left began on Friday to inundate ABC News with a wave of partisan objections and unfounded allegations against me.
Make no mistake: this is a calculated "astroturf" intimidation campaign by the well-funded and frightened-for-their-political-lives institutional left to quash dissenting voices. It's what they do.
What was ABC News' response? Not standing up for free speech and the 1st Amendment. Not sticking by their original invitation. Not standing up for diversity of opinion.
Instead, on Saturday, ABC News issued an official statement that was immediately heralded as a victory by the anti-free speech forces on the left:
Since conservative commentator Andrew Breitbart announced on his website that he was going to be a participant in ABC's Town Hall meeting at Arizona State University, there has been considerable consternation and misinformation regarding my decision to ask him to participate in an election night Town Hall event for ABC News Digital. I want to explain what Mr. Breitbart's role has always been as one of our guests at our digital town hall event:
Mr. Breitbart is not an ABC News analyst.
He is not an ABC News consultant.
He is not, in any way, affiliated with ABC News.
He is not being paid by ABC News.
He has not been asked to analyze the results of the election for ABC News.
Mr. Breitbart will not be a part of the ABC News broadcast coverage, anchored by Diane Sawyer and George Stephanopoulos. For the broadcast coverage, David Muir and Facebook's Randi Zuckerberg will contribute reaction and response gathered from the students and faculty of Arizona State University at an ABC News/Facebook town hall.
He has been invited as one of several guests, from a variety of different political persuasions, to engage with a live, studio audience that will be closely following the election results and participating in an online-only discussion and debate to be moderated by David Muir and Facebook's Randi Zuckerberg on ABCNews.com and Facebook. We will have other guests, as well as a live studio audience and a large audience on ABCNews.com and Facebook, who can question the guests and the audience's opinions.
George Stephanoplous quickly tweeted, "Breitbart NOT on ABC network broadcast http://bit.ly/bgkseJ."
I can state without absolute certainty that the verbal pitch to me to participate was punctuated by the opportunity to appear as part of ABC News' broadcast television for the night. I was also aware that the majority of my participation – seven long hours – would be online.
Here is the email from ABC confirming their invitation for me to participate in their online and network broadcast election night coverage:
Andrew,
So great speaking with you, and I cannot thank you enough for joining us in Arizona on election night. We truly appreciate it.
NY is booking your travel right now, and want to make sure your name on your ID reads "Andrew Breitbart".
I really look forward to meeting you, and would love to take you out to lunch or dinner before our election coverage.
See below about ABC New's coverage on election night.
Cheers, and will see you soon.
XXXX
XXXX XXXX
Producer
ABC News
ABC News is conducting a live event from Phoenix, Arizona for our election night special on Tuesday, November 2nd 2010. I am looking for political figures and newsmakers to appear in our Town Hall style panel.
ABC News is providing live coverage of the midterm elections hosted by Diane Sawyer and George Stephanopoulos in New York, and correspondents across the country.
ABC News has partnered with Facebook and The Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University to live stream the entire event on abcnews.com, ABC News Now and Facebook.
The Town Hall is hosted by ABC correspondent David Muir and Randi Zuckerberg from Facebook, as well an ASU student leader.
The audience will consist of 150 students equipped with laptops and Ipads who will participate in online political conversations.
The issues include health care, the economy, immigration, terrorism, and the environment. We will have panelists who will contribute to these conversations remotely from Washington, DC, New York, NY and Los Angeles, CA.
This program will broadcast on the ABC Television Network, abcnews.com, ABC News Now, and ABC News Radio.
The show will be live on the web and ABC News Now as well as on the network from 4:00pm till 11:00pm MST.
We would love for you to be a part of our program, and please let us know what we can do to accommodate your needs.
I am booking the guests for the event and will be in Phoenix starting Thursday, October 28th.
Feel free to email me back or call me at the following number with any questions.
Thanks so much,
XXXX XXXX
Producer
ABC News
In addition to the two times that an ABC News producer confirms in the email that I will be part of ABC News' network broadcast, David Ford of ABC News confirmed to Media Matters that I "will be one of many voices on our air" on election night.
I was promised no specific amount of airtime, nor payment for my analysis, but was told that I would be a part of the broadcast coverage in addition to participating in the online event, as the email above clearly reveals.
And, clearly, I was being asked to give analysis – or, was ABC News paying for me to fly to Arizona and to foot my hotel bill so that I could perform avant-garde interpretative dance?
Apparently, a Daily Kos blogger has also been asked to participate. Daily Kos, as many of you may know, has been widely discredited for spreading malicious falsehoods and political extremism. It's creator Markos Moulitsas is currently promoting his book, whose title says it all: American Taliban: How War, Sex, Sin and Power Bind Jihadists and the Radical Right.
I do not ask that the Daily Kos bloggernot get air-time. To the contrary, I have a long history of trying to bring as many voices to the fore as humanly possible. One need look no further than my creating the Huffington Post – a project that's underlying politics I never embraced – with Arianna Huffington and Ken Lerer in 2005.
During its creation I explained to many bewildered observers: "Bringing my former boss and longtime friend Arianna's intriguing friends to the blogosphere, the ultimate level playing field, makes perfect sense to me, and I am thrilled to be committed to such a groundbreaking project. Will my pals on the right have a place to offer their two cents at the Huffington Post? Absolutely. Will I agree with everyone's written word? Of course not. But that's precisely the point. May the best ideas win."
This is not really about "me." This is about a full-fledged assault on the 1st Amendment and free speech. It is an unabashed attempt to win by intimidating a news organization for daring to have a dissenting voice on its broadcast. The same forces just prevailed against Juan Williams, and Erick Erickson's CNN gig was met with the same anti-free speech, anti-opposing viewpoints full-court press from the institutional left. Again, it's what they do.
The Internet is the revolution of our time and new media has benefited democracy by expanding the number of people who can influence the political process. My Big sites (Big Government, Big Hollywood, Big Peace, and Big Journalism) have expanded the voice and power of the center-right, and in particular, the Tea Party movement.
As is evidenced by George Soros's $1 million dollar re-investment in Media Matters, which led the harassment campaign to silence center-left commentator Juan Williams, the political left is doubling down on its "silence your critics" strategy.
I am no stranger to this particular kind of tactic. In fact, my business has been built on the premise of fighting it. Boo, George Soros! Bring it on, John Podesta!
Is this trend of silencing dissenting voices not wholly obvious even to the untrained eye?
I created Big Hollywood for my conservative friends in liberal Hollywood to fight back against this most un-American practice. We are making up for a lot of lost ground in a very short period of time. That is why more and more voices are starting to express themselves and there are more bodies coming out of the closet. These victories motivate me to keep the pressure on.
On Sunday Big Journalism broke the troubling KTVA (Anchorage) voicemail story that showed reporters and producers plotting how to smear GOP candidate Joe Miller. The real story here is that the Big sites have broken huge stories that have affected this election cycle, including ones that show an unhealthy collusion between the political left and America's major newsrooms. Perhaps on election eve, as I prepare to head to Phoenix to participate — one way or another — in ABC News's coverage, it's no surprise that we are ending this news cycle with a clash on this bitterly contested front.
Sent from my iPhone
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