Three years ago, Gawker published a story outing Condé Nast’s CFO as gay—based solely on the account of a man who was extorting him. Within literally 24 hours, a firestorm of criticism forced Gawker to delete the story. It really didn’t have a choice. After all, that story was, at best, gay-shaming. At worst, it made Gawker complicit in extortion.
That’s why I find it hard to understand why a breakdown of journalistic decency that was at least, if not more, egregious hasn’t generated similar outraged. Namely, Breitbart editor-in-chief Alex Marlow admitting that he believed one of Roy Moore’s accusers, Leigh Corfman, was credible—and yet, did nothing while Breitbart slimed her and the other accusers.
In so doing, the number-three man in Breitbart’s newsroom admitted that he not only condoned an outrageous act of politically-motivated victim-shaming, but that he didn’t really care if one of the accusers was possibly telling the truth. This sort of thing is exactly why victims of sexual assault don’t come forward for years, if at all.
What is more, it destroys the narrative we’ve heard from a number of Breitbart refusniks—that Steve Bannon subverted Andrew Breitbart. Two of Breitbart’s largest stockholders, president and CEO Larry Solov and megadonor Rebekah Mercer, were on hand while Andrew was still alive. And they didn’t even make a peep. With a few notable exceptions, most right-wingers have stayed silent on this as well. And that includes some of the same people who were essentially demanding that MSNBC personalities be locked up after the congressional baseball shooting. Apart from CNN’s initial report, it’s largely slipped off the radar in the mainstream press as well.
I know I’ve diaried a lot on this, but this sort of thing cannot be normalized. It proves that this country still does not get it about domestic violence and sexual assault. Breitbart has to be held to account—whether Corfman sues them or by other means.