Breitbart for sale


forsale

While Fox News is frantically struggling to scuttle the Trump’s presidential campaign, there is one media outlet that has been proudly and loudly in his corner: Breitbart.

They’re actually running articles titled THE 10 MOST IMPORTANT REASONS TRUMP WOULD MAKE A GREAT PRESIDENT and DONALD TRUMP RISES TO POSITION OF TOTAL DOMINANCE. Wow. They must truly believe.

Or maybe not.

According to four sources with knowledge of the situation, editors and writers at the outlet have privately complained since at least last year that the company’s top management was allowing Trump to turn Breitbart into his own fan website — using it to hype his political prospects, and attack his enemies. One current editor called the water-carrying “despicable” and “embarrassing,” and said he was told by an executive last year that the company had a financial arrangement with Trump. A second Breitbart staffer said he had heard a similar description of the site’s relationship with the billionaire but didn’t know the details; and a third source at the company said he knew of several instances when managers had overruled editors at Trump’s behest. Additionally, a conservative communications operative who works closely with Breitbart described conversations in which “multiple writers and editors” said Trump was paying for the ability to shape coverage, and added that one staffer claimed to have seen documentation of the “pay for play.”

Breitbart also went all-in on the idea that gamergate was about ethics in journalism. I don’t think they’d recognize ethics unless it ran up and paid them with a big check.

Comments

  1. addicted44 says

    To be fair, this is absolutely and completely consistent with Republican values.

    In fact, the idea that news organizations should not do the bidding of the highest payer is antithetical to their values.

  2. PatrickG says

    BREAKING NEWS: IRONY METERS EXPLODE, BREITBART.COM BLAMED

    In a tragic turn of events, at least 2000 people were injured when irony meters across the world suddenly exploded, hurling shards of plastic and metal into bystanders. Police officials issued a statement linking the explosions to the exact moment when a Breitbart.com employee complained about unethical behavior on the part of their employers. Another staffer, who wishes to remain anonymous, said “Dude, we never saw it coming. I mean, we thought all those meters broke the day we bought the domain name and called it a legitimate news site. Seriously, we named this thing after Andrew Breitbart!”

    Breitbart.com issued a brief statement indicating the possibility of a suit against Donald Trump for forcing them to accept money and break even the weakest of ethical standards. A source close to the Trump campaign claims Trump said “Losers. Journalists used to stay bought!”

  3. komarov says

    It is, in certain economic circles, a well-believed fact that ethics is a function of money:

    ε(¤) = p+a*log(¤^g)

    where:
    ¤ is the amount of money that can be spent* (currency dependend usually in thousands or greater)
    p is the poverty factor; p < 0, i.e. a negative offset because everybody knows poor people are unethical and prone to criminal activity
    a is the aristocracy factor. Once thought to be a universal constant, economists have found that it has steadily decreased over the past few centuries. Often neglected due to its small effect
    g is a growth factor (g > 1) representing national growth. Wealthier countries with fast growth tend to be much more ethical than poor countries with low growth. This is a simplified picture. Many factors influence g and so some countries (e.g. China, India) have very low g factors despite their apparent fast growth.

    This is a log function, i.e.
    – you need a minimum amount of money to have any ethics at all
    – while ethics gain is fast initially, to become really ethical you need lots and lots and lots of money. And then a lot more. (An example (image))

    Note also that the unit of ethicity is arbitrarily defined and named after the highest bidder at any given time. Last I checked it was called the Trump and it takes about 6 MTrump for a moment’s worth of honest self-reflection.

    *You can also model ethics based on your profit margins or the money you get out of a particular deal.

    P.S.: All the html-symbols look fine in the preview. If they don’t work in the actual post, well, never mind.

  4. Saganite, a haunter of demons says

    So, Trump pays for an audience at his presidential candidacy announcement, he pays for positive propaganda, he pays for his own ads. I’ll give him one thing: The fact that he constantly buys others makes it less likely that people like the Kochs will buy him. Of course, since he is basically one of them himself, anyway, they wouldn’t need to buy him to get him to do what they want, so that benefit is moot.

  5. Larry says

    One current editor called the water-carrying “despicable” and “embarrassing,”

    Now I know the article is fake. The Breitbart kiddies have had their embarrassment glands surgically removed as a condition of their coming to work there. As far as ethics, they’ve never had those so to be complaining about under-the-table payments and such just has to be phony.

  6. Trebuchet says

    So, Trump pays for an audience at his presidential candidacy announcement, he pays for positive propaganda, he pays for his own ads. I’ll give him one thing: The fact that he constantly buys others makes it less likely that people like the Kochs will buy him. Of course, since he is basically one of them himself, anyway, they wouldn’t need to buy him to get him to do what they want, so that benefit is moot.

    According to him, he also paid for politicians to do stuff for him (a felony) and for Hillary Clinton to attend his wedding.

  7. PatrickG says

    mysteriousqfever: D’aww, thanks. Really, though, Breitbart and Trump jokes write themselves. Combine the two, and muscle memory is sufficient.

  8. says

    Hold on, the people at Breitbart.com thought they were doing journalism? I thought the scheme was to write a bunch of stuff that would appeal to the right wingers so a wealthy rube would bring them loads of cash to get something promoted. Andrew must be spinning in his grave screaming: “Shut up you fools! Go cash the check! We won!”

  9. Thumper: Who Presents Boxes Which Are Not Opened says

    Is this even legal? Like, if documentation exists that Trump has been bribing people to shape coverage of his campaign, surely someone somewhere ought to be facing some legal consequences?

  10. shadow says

    @15 Thumper:

    The FEC is a paper tiger without teeth. Even if proved illegal, the most they’d do is fine Herr Hairpiece. Usually well after the facts were proven and the damage done.