I haven’t posted about the Twitter and blog war which broke out over a clip of Mike Tyson trash talking Sarah Palin in very explicit and violent sexual ways, although I did spotlight Dan Riehl’s post about it as Post of the Day.
The controversy is not that a convicted rapist would make such statements, but that The Daily Caller would run the clip with a bold traffic-grabbing headline and keep it there without so much as any commentary (which was not added until later).
I can’t say it was the worst trashing of Palin I’ve ever seen, but it definitely was the worst I’d ever seen at a supposedly conservative website and one which has a high profile. While the post quoted Tyson, it was pure traffic-baiting using sexual violence against Palin as the tease.
There is a huge difference between an article discussing despicable comments about conservative women, and quoting the language in the context of analysis, and what The Daily Caller did.
Dan Riehl drove the issue hard (including one post he has since taken down in which he used some parody to impugn what The Daily Caller had done). And then Greta Van Susteren got involved with a brutal take down of her “friend” Tucker Carlson, who runs The Daily Caller (bold lettering in original):
I really don’t understand my friend Tucker Carlson. He owns the website The Daily Caller and it currently has on its front page the most vile story — referring to a sex act with Governor Sarah Palin as a “womb shifter.” It is even the headline. Do you know what that means? Figure it out It is really vile. It is not just smut…this is violence against women.
Once Greta got involved, the controversy went mainstream, with a post at Politico and a long Memeorandum thread.
Carlson went on Greta’s show last night, and he didn’t do himself any favors:
Carlson tried to call it mere news reporting, but it was pure traffic baiting. Greta saw it for what it was, and Carlson just kept digging.
The damage to The Daily Caller is enormous. It now is the subject of widespread mockery, such as this “Hitler” video from Three Bears Later blog.
This is a disaster compounded by the folks at The Daily Caller digging while in a hole, and digging even harder when people called them out on it, and doubling down on the digging as it went viral.
Can The Daily Caller survive? Should it?
Depends on how much money its investors want to throw at it, because at this point it’s a pretty deep hole they’ve dug.
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Comments
Didn’t Mr. Treacher claim that he doesn’t take insults personally?
Could you be more specific?
I think you just handled that for me.
Oh. Well, have a nice day.
“The controversy is not that a convicted rapist would make such statements, but that The Daily Caller would run the clip with a bold traffic-grabbing headline and keep it there without so much as any commentary (which was not added until later).”
If the DC were an out and proud card-carrying Leftist site there would be no controversy, really. So the controversy in question is begged to be more about the DC’s stated purpose for existing. Editorial caveats and ombudsmen are just window-dressing after the fact.
If the DC exists for itself, first and foremost, then I don’t see why anyone thinks they have a dog in the fight.
If it purports to be big-C Conservative then it would seem they have abetted the enemies of that camp.
If it purports to exist for journalistic excellence, pure and above partisan influence, well. . . it’s open season on interpretation.
The only scenario that makes sense is to consider that the DC Caller exists for its own amusement. I say, God bless them and those that have the money to support such free men acting like a prep school newspaper club. It keeps them from panty raids and traumatizing the school mascot.
It hasn’t cost me a thing, and hasn’t hurt anyone but themselves.
This is, I think, one of the times where the prudishness of social conservatives (as opposed to political conservatives) rears its ugly head.
I’ve read the transcript, and I’ve followed some of the heated rhetoric about this, and I think Treacher pretty much has the right of it. Tyson said some terrible things about Palin, and if the comments had been made about anyone else, there would have been a storm of outrage. But it’s about Palin, so that’s ok.
DC reports the remarks, and that makes them the bad guy. WTF? What would have been more appropriate? Silence? Ignore the issue? Paraphrase the comments?
How do you explain the impact of Tyson’s words, if all you report is “Mikey said something really nasty, but we won’t repeat it?” I my first reaction would be “well, what exactly did he say?” If you can’t or won’t discuss specifics, you allow the slimeballs to win. What do they get away with next time?
Still very struck by the professor’s phrasing: “it was pure traffic-baiting using sexual violence against Palin as the tease.”
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