[Breitbart] Author and radio host Mark Steyn offers support to Breitbart’s #DumpKelloggs boycott in his latest column, noting the danger posed to free speech and culture when corporations increasingly politicize every issue by siding with the left in order to silence or de-legitimize the left’s political opponents, which Steyn writes is the real aim of Kellogg’s actions.
Steyn at first takes aim at the Associated Press’ characterization of Breitbart in the wire service’s article about the Kellogg’s boycott, in which the AP writes: "Breitbart has been condemned for featuring racist, sexist and anti-Semitic content."
From Mark Steyn:
AP doesn’t actually produce any evidence of "racist, sexist and anti-Semitic content", which would require considerable journalistic effort on its part. Instead, it states blandly that the site has been "condemned" as such. "Condemned" used to be a term with legal meaning: A judge tells a convicted man that he is "condemned to hang". But in this case Breitbart hasn’t been convicted of anything, merely labeled by its political opponents. Just like Reuters could "condemn" Associated Press for "featuring pedophile content". If labeling is all it now takes.
And in fact the real target here is not Breitbart so much as the incoming President of the United States, who has appointed Breitbart honcho Steve Bannon as a senior counselor. The losing side in the election wants to "de-normalize" Trump and his administration, by in effect de-legitimizing his voters and their electoral victory. |