For months now I have also watched as the Huffington Post has constructed an institutionalized and systematic journalistic slant against Mr. Edwards and seemingly in favor of Barack Obama.
The latest Salvo, a hit piece posted to their "news" section courtesy of Sam Stein (who?), seeks to make mountains out of molehills by embarking on a faux treasure hunt in search of some year-old internet videos produced by Mr. Edwards' One America organization to promote its work.
The title of the frontpaged article is "Edwards Mystery: Innocuous Videos Suddenly Shrouded In Secrecy" if you can believe that alliterated sensationalist shit.
Mr. Stein contacted the Edwards campaign, and seemed stunned by the fact that no one there immediately knew what the fuck he was talking about when he asked about the year old films produced by a separate entity altogether. When he did find someone who remembered that shit, he was told that it could not be used because it would violate campaign finance law.
So basically, Stein has his answer already. It was a complex campaign finance issue and because the videos were produced by a separate organization they were playing it safe. Mr. Stein, apparently a sucker for melodrama, soldiered on regardless:
"Thwarted, I tried my hand with the movie's producers. A search for the filmmaker, Rielle Hunter, proved that Google does, in fact, have its limitations. No hits. The same held true with Facebook and Myspace - a bizarre level of anonymity for someone in the movie business."
Apparently Mr. Stein's knowledge of media, communications, and even entertainment is quite elementary for someone of his stature (blog reporter?). Because last time I checked, producing internet videos for politicians is hardly considered being in the fucking "movie business". The only bizarre thing here is that batty conflation.
He goes on to snag a few "no comment" responses from production people who worked on the videos, and apparently even badgered a few poor production assistants. He seems genuinely suprised when the production company and its employees weren't willing to gab to the press. Hello! A: They are likely bound by contract not to, as is standard in production agreements. B: They're businesspeople! Why would they want to fuck up their business relationships just to go against the campaign's wishes to abide by campaign finance law? Stein's thought processes make sense on virtually no level.
In the end, Stein finally pesters the Edwards campaign into showing them the videos:
"Jonathan Prince (Edwards' Deputy Campaign Manager) offered to let me and my editor, Tom Edsall, watch the videos - apparently unaware that at one point his campaign claimed not to have access to them. But there was a proviso: we could only view the videos in Prince's presence.
We accepted the offer. But oh, how the story and my interests have changed. No longer am I working on a piece about new media and politics - boring! Now, I just want to know why these webisodes are shrouded in such mystery."
And pretty much right after that, the article ends. What the fuck? How did that shit turn out, Stein? Did you not even take them up on their offer to show you those year old videos that you'd already seen and yet sought to make into some sort of international mystery scandal?
By the way, they probably insisted on being there while you view the videos to make sure that you do not copy them, you no-article-finishing, character-assasinating hack fuck.
After a couple of years of dedicated readership, the Huffington Post's prime spot on my bookmarks toolbar is in serious jeopardy. Apparently I'm not alone. The comments section of the article is brimming with disapproving commentators.
Update: I went to the Huffington post to post a link to my blog entry about this and learned that I had been banned from commenting, despite the fact that my comment history contained a paltry two innocent comments. See my blog, Ben Bang, for more including screenshots.
Update2: I am also looking into the fact that the Huffington Post seems to be engaging in a pattern of posting anti-Edwards propaganda like this the day after democratic debates.
Comments are closed on this story.