Earlier today, Breitbart.com published an article by Larry O’Connor that falsely claimed New York Times columnist Paul Krugman had filed for bankruptcy. The false claim originally appeared at a parody website called the Daily Currant.
Liberals, always happy to see a conservative media outlet slip up, were gleeful:
https://twitter.com/drgrist/status/311182607339638784
https://twitter.com/tanehisi/status/311105300465860608
Breitbot @larryoconnor actually thinks Krugman filed for bankruptcy; wrote it up as NEWS; http://t.co/7i2hsgCABR #conservativejournalism
— Eric Boehlert (@EricBoehlert) March 11, 2013
.@dmataconis @SmoosieQ @LarryOConnor Hahaha! http://t.co/xm9ybUmOhy IS a parody site! LMAO! #KeepNOTCheckingThoseSourcesUHacks
— Michele (@haymakers) March 11, 2013
Could we get the Daily Currant to do something about climate change? Might be the only way http://t.co/TLCCVRL3Cx will think it's real.
— Andy Cobb (@AndyCobb) March 11, 2013
Even Krugman himself got into the Breitbart-blaming act:
On Friday I started hearing from friends about a fake story making the rounds about my allegedly filing for personal bankruptcy; I even got asked about the story by a reporter from Russian television, who was very embarrassed when I told him it was fake. But I decided not to post anything about it; instead, I wanted to wait and see which right-wing media outlets would fall for the hoax.
And Breitbart.com came through!
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go give a lavishly paid speech to Friends of Hamas.
Ha ha ha! Get it? Conservatives are so stupid! And everyone knows liberal journalists never make mistakes.
Of course, Krugman and the other Breitbart-bashers had nothing to say about the Boston Globe, which also ran an article repeating the erroneous bankruptcy claim.
Indeed, according to O’Connor, the Breitbart.com article was based on the Globe’s article:
I trusted http://t.co/Xhr9475nJo as the source for that Krugman piece, but they were duped by Daily Currant, therefore, so was I!
— Larry O'Connor (@LarryOConnor) March 11, 2013
Like Breitbart.com, the Globe has deleted its article.
Erik Wemple of the Washington Post asked The Globe to explain why it picked up the incorrect Krugman story. The answer to that question is very interesting indeed:
Brian McGrory, the Globe’s editor, explains that no editorial official at his paper ever made a decision to post the piece. “The story arrived deep within our site from a third party vendor who partners on some finance and market pages on our site,” says McGrory. It was never on the Boston.com homepage, says McGrory. “We never knew it was there till we heard about it from outside.” Since the posting went up, McGrory attests to having done “urgent work to get it the hell down,” something that appears to have happened, though not as quickly as McGrory would have liked. “The idea that we’d have a partner on our site is actually news to me,” says McGrory, who vows to “address our relationship with that vendor.”
So the Boston Globe is now running stories written by third-party “vendors” that Globe editors neither review nor edit. That’s perfectly OK with liberals because … Breitbart!
Mediaite’s Tommy Christopher, probably the only liberal to acknowledge the blatant double standard, penned a post defending Breitbart.com:
Liberal bloodlust for Breitbart is not an excuse for scapegoating Larry O’Connor for the far greater sins of The Globe, it is a betrayal of the very phenomenon they’re trying to critique.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member