Andrew James Breitbart (/ˈbraɪtbɑːrt/; February 1, 1969 – March 1, 2012) was an American conservative journalist[1] and political commentator who was the founder of Breitbart News and a co-founder of HuffPost.
After helping in the early stages of HuffPost[2] and the Drudge Report,[3] Breitbart created Breitbart News, now a far-right[4] news and opinion website, which has been described as misogynistic, xenophobic, and racist by academics and journalists.[5]
Breitbart was born to Irish American parents in Los Angeles on February 1, 1969.[9][10] According to his birth certificate, his biological father was a folk singer. When he was three weeks old, he was adopted by Gerald and Arlene Breitbart, a restaurant owner and banker respectively, and grew up in the affluent neighborhood of Brentwood.[9] His adoptive family was Jewish; his mother had converted to Judaism when marrying his father.[11][12] Breitbart studied at Hebrew school and had a Bar Mitzvah.[13] Theologically he was an agnostic.[11]
Breitbart attended Brentwood School, one of the country's top private schools, but did not distinguish himself, saying: "My sense of humor saved me".[11] However, he discovered that he loved writing, publishing his first comedic piece in the school newspaper, the Brentwood Eagle, analyzing the inequality in his high school's senior and junior parking lots: "One had Mercedes and BMWs, the other Sciroccos and GTIs".[11] Breitbart remembers his upbringing as apolitical, except in one instance: when the family's rabbi tried to defend Jesse Jackson against charges of antisemitism after his "Hymietown" comment, his parents left the synagogue in protest.[11]
Breitbart would remain "proudly and playfully Jewish" throughout his life, although not always religiously observant. He would sing Hebrew songs at work while also teasing his Orthodox Jewish colleagues for keeping to a kosher diet.[14]Joel Pollak wrote: "He carried his faith as he carried all his convictions: with a lighthearted touch but a deep commitment."[14] Breitbart later said of his profession: "I'm glad I've become a journalist because I'd like to fight on behalf of the Israeli people... And the Israeli people, I adore and I love."[14][15]
Previously left-leaning in his politics, Breitbart changed his political views after experiencing "an epiphany" while watching the late 1991 confirmation hearings for Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas, due to what he considered unfounded attacks on the part of liberals based on former employee Anita Hill's sexual harassment accusations.[20] Breitbart later described himself as "a Reagan conservative" with libertarian sympathies.[1]
Listening to radio hosts such as Rush Limbaugh helped Breitbart refine his political and philosophical positions, igniting an interest in learning that he had suppressed as a result of his distaste for the "nihilistic musings of dead critical theorists"[21] that had dominated his studies at Tulane. In this era, Breitbart also read Camille Paglia's book Sexual Personae (1990), a massive survey of Western art, literature and culture from ancient Egypt to the 20th century, which, he wrote, "made me realize how little I really had learned in college."[21]
Public life
Authorship, research, and reporting
Breitbart has been lauded for his role in the "evolution of pioneering websites" including The Huffington Post and The Drudge Report, and later, for Breitbart News. Journalists such as Nick Gillespie and Conor Friedersdorf have credited Breitbart with bringing new voices to debates about politics and culture. Breitbart told Reason in 2004 that, after feeling ignored by existing outlets, "We decided to go out and create our media." Described as "a series of do-it-yourself demonstration projects" and "conversation pits", the Breitbart websites have been both criticized and praised for their role in various political issues.[8][22] Breitbart has been recognized for adopting an inclusive stance with regard to the participation of gay people in the conservative movement. He has also been credited with helping to derail conspiracy theories about Barack Obama's citizenship.[8]
In 1995, Breitbart saw The Drudge Report and was so impressed that he e-mailed Matt Drudge. Breitbart said, "I thought what he was doing was by far the coolest thing on the Internet. And I still do."[2] Breitbart described himself as "Matt Drudge's bitch"[23] and selected and posted links to other news wire sources. Later, Drudge introduced him to a then still-RepublicanArianna Huffington[12] and Breitbart subsequently assisted in the creation of The Huffington Post.[24]
In April 2011, Grand Central Publishing released Breitbart's book Righteous Indignation: Excuse Me While I Save the World, in which he discussed his own political evolution and the part he took in the rise of new media, most notably at the Drudge Report and The Huffington Post.[citation needed]
Breitbart launched his first website as a news site; it is often linked to by the Drudge Report and other websites. It has wire stories from the Associated Press, Reuters, Agence France-Presse, Fox News, PR Newswire, and U.S. Newswire, as well as direct links to a number of major international newspapers. Its political viewpoint as well as its audience runs to the right within the U.S. political spectrum.[27] In 2007, Breitbart launched a video blog, Breitbart.tv.[28]
In February 2011, Breitbart and one of his editors Larry O'Connor were sued for defamation by Shirley Sherrod, who had been fired after Breitbart posted a video of a speech given by Sherrod. The video had been selectively edited to suggest that she had purposely discriminated against a white farmer, while in reality the unedited video told the story of how she had helped that farmer.[29][30] Breitbart himself maintained that he stated this in his article about it, and that the purpose of the video was to show the crowd's positive reaction to Sherrod's statements about discriminating against the white farmer.[31] In July 2015, it was reported that Sherrod and Breitbart's estate had reached a tentative settlement.[30] It was reported October 1, 2016, that the lawsuit was settled.[32]
On October 22, 2009, Breitbart appeared on the C-SPAN program Washington Journal. He gave his opinions on the mainstream media, Hollywood, the Obama administration and his personal political views, having heated debates with several callers.[1]
In February 2010, Breitbart received the Reed IrvineAccuracy in Media Award during the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C. During his acceptance speech, he responded directly to accusations by The New York Times reporter Kate Zernike that Jason Mattera, a young conservative activist, had been using "racial tones" in his allusions to President Barack Obama, and had spoken in a "Chris Rock voice". From the podium, Breitbart called Zernike "a despicable human being" for having made such allegations about what, according to him, was just Mattera's Brooklyn accent.[39] At the same conference, Breitbart was also filmed saying to journalist Max Blumenthal that he found him to be "a jerk" and "a despicable human being" over a blog entry in which Blumenthal accused Breitbart of employing a racist.[40] Blumenthal was referring to James O'Keefe over his having attended a Georgetown Law Center discussion on race featuring Kevin Martin, John Derbyshire, and Jared Taylor, the last of whom founded American Renaissance, a white supremacist online magazine. Neither O'Keefe nor Breitbart endorsed Taylor's views.
In 2011, Breitbart said that "of course" Donald Trump was not a conservative, adding:
But this is a message to those candidates who are languishing at 2 percent and 3 percent within the Republican Party who are brand names in Washington, but the rest of the country don't know ... celebrity is everything in this country. And if these guys don't learn how to play the media the way that Barack Obama played the media last election cycle and the way that Donald Trump is playing the election cycle, we're going to probably get a celebrity candidate.[41]
Breitbart often appeared as a speaker at Tea Party movement events across the U.S. For example, Breitbart was a speaker at the first National Tea Party Convention at Gaylord Opryland Hotel in Nashville on February 6, 2010.[42] Breitbart later involved himself in a controversy over allegations of homophobic and racial slurs being used at a March 20, 2010, rally at the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C., by asserting that slurs were never used, and that "it was a set-up" by Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic Party. Breitbart offered to donate $100,000 to the United Negro College Fund "for any audio/video footage of the N-word being hurled," claiming that the several Congressmen made it up. Breitbart insisted Congressman John Lewis and several other witnesses were forced to lie, concluding that "Nancy Pelosi did a great disservice to a great civil rights icon by thrusting him out there to perform this mischievous task. His reputation is now on the line as a result of her desperation to take down the Tea Party movement."[43][44]
In February 2012, a YouTube video showed Breitbart yelling at Occupy D.C. protesters outside a Washington hotel hosting a Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). The video showed security escorting Breitbart back to the hotel while he told the protesters to "behave yourself", and alluding to reported assaults of women at Occupy encampments, he repeatedly yelled, "Stop raping people", and called the protestors "filthy, filthy, raping, murdering freaks!" David Carr said with the incident Breitbart had caused his last "viral storm on the Web."[45][46]
Breitbart appeared posthumously in Occupy Unmasked, a documentary film by Steve Bannon that contends that the Occupy Wall Street movement of "largely naïve students and legitimately concerned citizens looking for answers" is actually orchestrated by sinister, violent, and organized leaders with the purpose of not just changing, but destroying the American government.[47]
Breitbart Doctrine
The Breitbart Doctrine is the idea that "politics is downstream from culture" and that to change politics one must first change culture.
Chris Wylie (formerly of Cambridge Analytica) stated in an interview with The Guardian: "The reason why he (Steve Bannon) was interested in this is because he believes in this idea of the ‘Breitbart Doctrine,’ which is that if you want to change politics you first have to change culture because politics flows from culture. If you want to change culture, you have to first understand what the units of culture are, and the people are the units of culture. So, if you want to change politics, you first have to change people to change culture."[48] Breitbart considered this idea an important one and often spoke of it in interview or cited it in print.
Political views
Breitbart described himself as “eighty-five per cent conservative and fifteen per cent libertarian”.[49] Breitbart had previously described himself as a Democrat but shifted towards being conservative after witnessing the Democrats' treatment of Clarence Thomas during his senate confirmation hearing.[50][51]
Kaiser, Jonas; Rauchfleisch, Adrian; Bourassa, Nikki (March 15, 2020). "Connecting the (Far-)Right Dots: A Topic Modeling and Hyperlink Analysis of Right-Wing Media Coverage during the US Elections 2016". Digital Journalism. 8 (3). Routledge: 422–441. doi:10.1080/21670811.2019.1682629. S2CID211434599.
Higdon, Nolan (2020). The Anatomy of Fake News: A Critical News Literacy Education. University of California Press. pp. 105–109. ISBN978-0-520-34787-8. Retrieved September 9, 2022 – via Google Books. Breitbart relied on fear-inspiring racist and xenophobic narratives that had salience with whites who were reacting to the economic anxiety over the Great Recession with racial resentment over the election of the first self-identified black president and the increase in the proportion of the US population made up of racial minorities. [...] The election of President Barack Obama saw Breitbart continue the long-standing American practice of spreading racist-laden fake news stories. For example, Breitbart stories claimed that Obama was born in Kenya and supported terrorist organizations. Breitbart's fake news stories were not only racist but xenophobic and Islamophobic
DiMaggio, Anthony R. (December 30, 2021). "The Trojan Horse "Conservative" Media and the Mainstreaming of Neofascistic Politics". Rising Fascism in America: It Can Happen Here. Routledge. pp. 93–97. doi:10.4324/9781003198390-3. ISBN978-1-000-52308-9. S2CID244786335. Retrieved September 9, 2022 – via Google Books. But an analysis of Breitbart's content demonstrates the venue's commitment to normalizing neofascistic ideology, even as it refuses to acknowledge what it is doing. As Rolling Stone identified when it ran a November 2016 profile piece, Breitbart has a troubling history of promoting misogyny, Islamophobia, homophobia, and racism. [...] Concerning black-white relations in the United states, Breitbart also has an eliminationist-style rhetoric that depicts protests of racial inequality and police brutality as a fundamental threat to the nation.
Bhat, Prashanth; Vasudevan, Krishnan (May 20, 2019). "National Review: Opposing "Trumpbart"". In Atkinson, Joshua D.; Kenix, Linda (eds.). Alternative Media Meets Mainstream Politics: Activist Nation Rising. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 56–57. ISBN978-1-4985-8435-7. Retrieved September 9, 2022 – via Google Books. Third, writers at National Review took a moral high ground and accused Breitbart and Donald Trump of enthusing extremist groups associated with the alt-right, which the publication claimed were known for their misogyny, sexism, racism, and xenophobia. [...] By calling Breitbart "the homepage for peckerwood-trash racists and the white-power basement dwellers," National Review accused the far-right media outlet of paving the way for white supremacists to enter the mainstream.
Bhat, Prashanth (December 10, 2019). "Advertisements in the Age of Hyper-Partisan Media: Breitbart's #DumpKelloggs Campaign". In Gutsche, Robert E. Jr. (ed.). The Trump Presidency, Journalism, and Democracy(PDF). Routledge. pp. 192–205. ISBN9780367891527. Retrieved September 9, 2022 – via Open Research Library. By March 2017, they have collectively purchased less than 0.5 percent of Breitbart's inventory. These agencies have listed Breitbart to their list of brand-unsafe websites because the far-right site violated their hate speech policies (Benes, 2017). [...] In the case of Breitbart, brands such as Kellogg's withdrew ads because they didn't want to be associated with a media outlet that produces racist and xenophobic content.
Victor, Daniel; Stack, Liam (November 14, 2016). "Stephen Bannon and Breitbart News, in Their Words". The New York Times. ISSN0362-4331. Retrieved September 9, 2022. Critics, including some conservatives formerly associated with it, have denounced Breitbart in its current incarnation as a hate site steeped in misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, white nationalism and anti-Semitism.