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Andrew Breitbart

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Andrew Breitbart
Born (1969-02-01) February 1, 1969 (age 55)
Alma materTulane University
Occupation(s)Journalist, Columnist

"[Left-leaning Hollywood personalities] are uninteresting, they’re vicious, they’re vitriolic, they’re really, really not good people. I’m willing to say that on the record. You could probe them scientifically and anthropologically and prove that they’re not good people....[The Hollywood left] is a stale group of people who are recycling the same old bad ideas that don’t work. Why else would those people go to the stinky side?"

Meet Andrew Breitbart, self-proclaimed rebel-king of L.A.'s underground conservative movement (interview), 2008[1]

Andrew J. Breitbart (born February 1, 1969) is an American publisher,[2] commentator for the Washington Times, author,[3] and an occasional guest commentator on various news programs. He may be best-known for serving as an editor for the Drudge Report website. He was a researcher for Arianna Huffington, and was employed by her as "the primary developer" of her website, The Huffington Post.[4][5] He currently runs his own news aggregation site, Breitbart.com, and four other sites: breitbart.tv, Big Hollywood, Big Government, and Big Journalism.

Origins and personal life

Breitbart grew up in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles. His father was a restaurateur, his mother a banker.[6] He procured employment at local fast-food restaurant All-American Burger at age 15, by lying about his age. Later, he worked as a pizza deliveryperson and car washer.[7] He graduated from Tulane University in 1991.[8] He was a "C" student in school and college.[2]

He says he "grew up in Brentwood a secular liberal Jew" who celebrated his bar mitzvah and "has the tape to prove it," but had "an interesting epiphany" during the Clarence Thomas hearings. He now describes himself as "a Reagan conservative" who has "sympathies towards the libertarian side of issues."[2] He "runs [his] business from [his] basement."[2]

His early jobs included a stint at cable channel E! Entertainment Television, working for the company's online magazine, and some time in film production.[6]

In 1995 he saw the Drudge Report and was so impressed that he emailed Matt Drudge. "I thought what he was doing was by far the coolest thing on the Internet. And I still do."[5] Matt Drudge introduced him to Arianna Huffington, when she was still a Republican,[6] and Breitbart subsequently assisted Huffington, after she became a progressive, in creating her website.

He is married to Susannah (Susie) Bean, daughter of actor Orson Bean, with whom he has four children.[5][9]

Contributor

Before the launching of Big Government, Breitbart's highest profile venue was the Drudge Report. Breitbart, who once jokingly described himself as "Matt Drudge’s bitch,"[10] selected and posted links to other news wire sources. Mr. Breitbart has guest-hosted the Savage Nation talk radio program on several occasions. He is also a regular fill in for Dennis Miller on his nationally syndicated radio show.

Author

Breitbart co-wrote Hollywood, Interrupted: Insanity Chic in Babylon with Mark Ebner, a book that is highly critical of U.S. celebrity culture. The publisher's description says, "celebrities somehow believe that it's their God-given right to inflict their pathology on the rest of us. Hollywood, Interrupted illustrates how these dysfunctional dilettantes are mad as hell.... And we're not going to take it any more."[11]

Breitbart's work has been published in the Wall Street Journal, National Review Online and the Weekly Standard Online, among others. He writes a weekly column for The Washington Times, which also appears at Real Clear Politics.

Commentator

Breitbart has appeared as a commentator on Real Time with Bill Maher and Dennis Miller. In 2004 he was a guest commentator on Fox News Channel's morning show and frequently appears as a guest panelist on Fox News's late night program, Red Eye w/ Greg Gutfeld. Breitbart also appeared as a commentator in the 2004 documentary Michael Moore Hates America.[12]

On October 22, 2009 Breitbart appeared on C-SPAN's 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.[2]

In the hours immediately following Senator Ted Kennedy's death, Breitbart called Kennedy a “villain,” a “duplicitous bastard,” a “prick”[13] and "a special pile of human excrement".[14][15]

Breitbart.com

Breitbart now[when?] runs his own news site at Breitbart.com. The site is frequently linked to by the Drudge Report and other websites. It features wire stories from the Associated Press, Reuters, Agence France-Presse, Fox News, PR Newswire, U.S. Newswire, as well as direct links to a number of major international newspapers. Its Blog & "Network" links tend run to the right within the U.S. political spectrum (e.g., National Review, Instapundit, and Townhall.com). The site also features a search engine powered by Lingospot and a finance channel powered by FinancialContent. In 2007, Breitbart launched a video blog, Breitbart.tv.[16] According to the The Standard, a Hong Kong-based news site, when Breitbart is at the controls of the Drudge Report, he regularly links to Breitbart.com in order, the site suggests, "to cash in on Drudge's legions."[17]

Big Hollywood

In 2008 Breitbart launched the website "Big Hollywood," a "group blog" driven by Tinseltown, with contributions from a variety of writers, including entertainment-industry professionals who politically lean right.[18] The site, an outgrowth of the column "Big Hollywood" that Breitbart wrote for the Washington Times, addresses issues facing conservatives who work in Hollywood.[1] Rogers Cadenhead, a liberal critic of the Drudge Report, described Breitbart as operating "in a constant state of anger at the perceived mistreatment of conservatives, particularly in Hollywood". Big Hollywood writers include Greg Gutfeld, Gary Graham, and Iowahawk (Dave Burge). The site is edited by John Nolte and Alexander Marlow.[19]

Big Government

Andrew Breitbart gave notice that he would produce a new blog, entitled "Big Government," to premier on September 10, 2009.[20]

Further information: [[:ACORN 2009 undercover videos controversy]]

The blog started by airing footage about the controversy regarding ACORN staffers in Baltimore who gave unethical advice concerning underage prostitution and tax-evasion on-tape to Hannah Giles and James O'Keefe. Within 24 hours of the video's release, the two women featured on the hidden camera were fired by ACORN over the incident. After the release of the second in the tape series, which targeted the Washington D.C. ACORN office, the U.S. Census Bureau severed its connection with ACORN, which had been scheduled to assist in the 2010 census. Five "sting tapes," with Hannah Giles portraying the "prostitute" Kenya, and O'Keefe acting as her boyfriend/pimp, have been released; these feature the ACORN offices in Baltimore, Maryland, Washington, DC, Brooklyn, New York, and both San Bernardino and San Diego, California.

Breitbart has vowed to continue exposing the ACORN organization; on November 22, 2009 he broke a story on Burbank's KFI AM radio about a "document dump" by the National City, California ACORN office. His story claimed that thousands of allegedly incriminating documents were thrown in a public dumpster in the wake of California Attorney General Jerry Brown's investigation of ACORN, only to be recovered by local private investigator Derrick Roach.[21] Breitbart says he plans to "drip" the documents out in a serialized story, in a fashion similar to the O'Keefe videos.

Controversy

In a Jan. 26th 2010 interview with Hugh Hewitt, Andrew stated that he pays James O'Keefe for his "life rights", but denied that the James O'Keefe 2010 arrest at Federal Building was not associated with Big Government or Breitbart.com. Breitbart stated, "Lots of people work for lots of corporations, and do dumb and sometimes illegal things that are not within the scope of their employment. And this was not within the scope of his employment." [22] [23]

References

  1. ^ a b "Hollywood Infidel". The New York Observer. March 16, 2007. Retrieved 2008-10-01.
  2. ^ a b c d e Andrew Breitbart, Breitbart.com Publisher C-SPAN, October 22, 2009. Breitbart referred to the "Democrat-Media complex" several times (from 14:45); demanded the host disconnect one caller, calling him a "creep" because he claimed that he witnessed Clarence Thomas renting pornography (from 16:00); defended the ACORN videos he published (from 18:15); stated conspiracy theories can be used to convince the poor that "the white man is out to get you" (23:15-24:30); said he is a limited government, low-tax conservative, sympathetic toward libertarian views, with a "libertine soft-spot" on issues of consensual behavior among adults (from 24.45).
  3. ^ Chideya, Farai. "Semper Fi Media", National Public radio, September 14, 2007. Accessed January 18, 2009. "The other person on the panel was Andrew Breitbart, who runs Breitbart.com, a news aggregator. That basically means that he culls what he considers the best of the news and puts it on one site. As it turns out, it's a profitable business. He's also an author, a blogger,"
  4. ^ "Big Hollywood.com >> Andrew Breitbart". Big Hollywood. Retrieved 2009-11-23.
  5. ^ a b c "Breitbart.com has Drudge to thank for its success". Cnet news. 2005. Retrieved 2009-07-29. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  6. ^ a b c "The Weekend Interview With Andrew Breitbart: Taking On the 'Democrat-Media Complex' - WSJ.com". online.wsj.com. Retrieved 2009-10-18.
  7. ^ Rice, Ned (2009-06-01). "Can Andrew Breitbart Save Hollywood?". Townhall. Retrieved 2009-07-27.
  8. ^ McCain, Robert Stacy (2007-05-29). "'News addict' gets his fix". The Washington Times. Retrieved 2009-07-27.
  9. ^ Orson Bean (2005). "Sgt. Curtis Massey Was 41". Cnet news. Retrieved 2009-07-29. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  10. ^ "Lists: What's Your Source for That? Where Andrew Breitbart gets his information". ReasonOnline.com. Retrieved 2008-10-01.
  11. ^ Hollywood, Interrupted: Insanity Chic in Babylon—The Case Against Celebrity, John Wiley & Sons
  12. ^ "National Review Online (http://www.nationalreview.com)". www.nationalreview.com. Retrieved 2009-11-02.
  13. ^ "Not all Kennedy critics hold fire". Retrieved August 26, 2009.
  14. ^ "Compromise: what Pennsylvania lawmakers could learn from Ted Kennedy" (editorial), The Patriot-News (Pennsylvania), 28 August 2009. Accessed 24 September 2009.
  15. ^ "Opinion: Ted Kennedy, the liberal adversary to the conservative movement". www.digitaljournal.com. Retrieved 2009-09-24.
  16. ^ Owen, Rob. The next wave: Ex-WTAE anchor Scott Baker changes channel to run Web news site, Post-Gazette
  17. ^ "Drudge and jury". The Standard. August 11, 2007. Retrieved 2009-09-09.
  18. ^ "Breitbart's Conservative Alternative to Left-y Celebrity Blogs". Retrieved 2008-11-04.
  19. ^ "Andrew Breitbart's Mad About Hollywood (Or Just Mad) - Watching the Watchers". watchingthewatchers.org. Retrieved 2009-06-14.
  20. ^ "New Political Blog 'Big Government' Launches Tomorrow". http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/. Retrieved 2009-06-14. {{cite web}}: External link in |publisher= (help)
  21. ^ "BREAKING: San Diego ACORN Document Dump Scandal (November 23, 2009)". Retrieved 2009-11-23.
  22. ^ http://www.hughhewitt.com/blog/g/3c0f68ec-ee51-42ae-b9ce-a170d352c202 An Interview With Andrew Breitbart About The O'Keefe Arrest
  23. ^ http://mediamatters.org/blog/201001260064 Breitbart says arrest not related to BigGovernment, but he's paying alleged wiretap plotter O'Keefe "a fair salary"
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