Conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart is highly partisan,frequently newsworthy - and, likely depending on your politicalviews, to be roundly admired or soundly criticized.
But Breitbart is credited by all with first reporting theindiscreet tweets of Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y. It's the latest ina series of headline incidents involving the digital entrepreneurand his unique new-media mix of publishing, sensationalism andpolitical advocacy.
Weiner's self-inflicted political implosion again put Breitbartfront and center on the national stage in recent days - including aninterview on NBC's "Today" show and an oft-aired, bizarre turn infront of news cameras at the same lectern that Weiner would momentslater use to admit he sent graphic photos of himself and suggestivetexts to women.
But Breitbart also faces a lawsuit by a former U.S. AgricultureDepartment employee that claims he damaged her reputation in 2010 byposting a "deceptively edited video" depicting her as a racist. Andhis partisan "gotcha" approach leaves behind any sense oftraditional news media.
Still, though Breitbart's fame may be rooted in the new tools andpervasive reach of the Internet Age, he's also the latest in a longline of controversial "scandalmongers" throughout U.S. history thathave been reviled or revered - often both.
Colonial editors promoted independence and fueled debate over theproposed Constitution and Bill of Rights. But many also gleefullyattacked political rivals by reporting their personal scandals andprofessional failings. "Yellow journalism" of the late 1800sexploited both scandal and new printing technologies to reach andinfluence mass audiences. So-called "muckrakers" of the early 20thcentury exposed social ills in dramatic fashion.
James Callender was a newspaper editor who plagued John Adams'presidency in the late 1790s with charges of pro-monarchy fantasies,mental illness and of a "hideous hermaphroditical character."Callender eventually was repudiated even by his quiet sponsor,Thomas Jefferson - after which the editor retaliated with scandalousreports of an intimate relationship between Jefferson and slaveSally Hemmings that remain controversial today.
American University journalism scholar Joseph Campbell notes thatWilliam Randolph Hearst shook up the relatively staid world of NewYork City journalism in the late 1890s by exploiting new advances inprinting such as color to add zest and sensational impact to storiesof political corruption as well as crime, sex and scandal.
And while their targets may have viewed the reporting asirresponsible and sensational, the work of the early 20th century'smuckraking authors and journalists now is valued for exposing socialills and dangerous conditions.
Upton Sinclair's novel The Jungle revealed poor workingconditions, corruption and rampant tainting of meat with rat fecesand urine in the nation's meatpacking industry - prompting the PureFood and Drug Act in 1906. Viewed by some as politically motivatedas Breitbart, Sinclair later said he wrote The Jungle to attackindustrial capitalism and promote socialism.
Pioneering journalist Nellie Bly went undercover in sweatshops toreport on poor working conditions for women, and had herselfcommitted to New York City's Women's Lunatic Asylum for 10 days todocument mistreatment of the mentally ill. Photographer and writerJacob Riis exposed wretched living conditions for the poor,especially children.
For decades beginning in the 1930s, newspaper columnist DrewPearson - sued for libel a reported 50 times - and later his protegeJack Anderson used what critics called a combination of facts,leaked material and pure rumor to fuel a newspaper column,"Washington Merry-Go-Round," to go after high-ranking officials andpublic figures.
Campbell said in an interview this week that controversialfigures like Breitbart can do harm, but also provide "a much-neededkick in the pants" to a complacent journalism establishment,disclosing issues and facts that otherwise would not be known.
History will be the final judge on whether Breitbart is anInternet flash in the pan or joins the ranks of valued publiccrusaders and vocal gadflies.
But all of them, and all of us, are empowered by our FirstAmendment freedoms (as an old saying goes) "to comfort the afflictedand afflict the comfortable."
(Policinski is senior vice president and executive director ofthe First Amendment Center, 1207 18th Ave. S., Nashville, Tenn.,37212. Web: www.firstamendmentcenter.org. E-mail:gpolicinski@fac.org.)
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