Initially conceived as "theHuffington Post of the right",[4][19][20]Breitbart News later aligned with thealt-right, the Europeanpopulist right, and thepan-European nationalistidentitarian movement under the management of former executive chairmanSteve Bannon,[21][22][23] who declared the website "the platform for the alt-right" in 2016.[24]Breitbart News became a virtual rallying spot for supporters ofDonald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.[25] The company's management, together with former staff memberMilo Yiannopoulos, solicited ideas for stories from, and worked to advance and market ideas ofneo-Nazi and white supremacist groups and individuals.[26][27] After the election, more than 2,000 organizations removedBreitbart News from ad buys followingInternet activism campaigns denouncing the site's controversial positions.[28][29][30] Breitbart's monthy visitors continually declined after Trump's election, from 17.3 million monthly readers at the beginning of 2017 to 4.6 million in May 2019[31] and to around 700,000 monthly readers in 2024.[32]
Andrew Breitbart launchedBreitbart.com as a news aggregator in 2005. The website featured direct links to wire stories at theAssociated Press,Reuters,Fox News, theNew York Post,TMZ as well as a number of other outlets. The website's initial growth was largely fueled by links from theDrudge Report. In 2007,Breitbart.com launched a video blog,Breitbart.tv.[36][37]
According to co-founderLarry Solov, the two men were in agreement that the site should be "unapologetically pro-freedom and pro-Israel" during their visit to Israel in 2007.[38] In August 2010, Andrew Breitbart told the Associated Press that he was "committed to the destruction of the old media guard." As part of that commitment, he foundedBreitbart.com, a website designed to become "theHuffington Post of the right" according toBreitbart News's former executive chairman,Steve Bannon.[4]Breitbart News exclusively re-posted theAnthony Weiner sexting scandal, theresignation of Shirley Sherrod, and theACORN 2009 undercover videos controversy. Following Andrew Breitbart's death in 2012, the site was redesigned, bringing the formerly distinct "Big" websites under one umbrella website atBreitbart.com.[4]
Billionaire conservative activistRobert Mercer endowedBreitbart.com with at least $11 million in 2011.[39]
2012–2016: after Andrew Breitbart's death
Bannon assumes leadership
Joel Pollak, the senior editor-at-large ofBreitbart News since 2012
Andrew Breitbart died in March 2012. The website hosted a number of memorials for him. Editors said they intended to carry on his legacy at the website.[40] Following Andrew Breitbart's death, former board member Steve Bannon became executive chairman andLaurence Solov became CEO. The company also hiredJoel Pollak as editor-in-chief andAlex Marlow as managing editor.[41] An October 2012 article inBuzzFeed News suggested there were internal tensions in the organisation in the year after Andrew Breitbart's death as staffers battled for ownership of his legacy.[42]
Before his death, Andrew Breitbart had begun a redesign of theBreitbart News website to transform it from a links-aggregator into a more tabloid-style website. The redesign was launched shortly after his death in March 2012.[42]
In February 2014, Bannon announced the addition of approximately 12 staff members and the opening of Texas and London-based operations. The new offices were the beginning of an expansion plan that included the addition of a new regional site roughly every 90 days, with new locations to includeFlorida,California,Cairo, andJerusalem.[43] According to a 2014Pew Research Center study, 3% of respondents got their news fromBreitbart in a typical week, and 79% of its audience reported having political values that are right-of-center.[44]
Breitbart News spokesperson Kurt Bardella stated in 2015 that the site "is a for-profit operation".[50] The company's investors include computer scientist and hedge fund CEO Robert Mercer.[50] Editors commented in 2015 that the site is a "private company and we don't comment on who our investors or backers are."[51] According to theLos Angeles Times, web traffic is vital to the company as it supports itself from advertising revenue.[48]
Support for Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign
Breitbart News strongly supportedDonald Trump in the2016 United States presidential election. In July 2015,Politico reported thatTed Cruz "likely has the Republican presidential field's deepest relationship with the Breitbart machine."[51] In August 2015, an article in BuzzFeed reported that several anonymousBreitbart News staffers claimed that Donald Trump had paid for favorable coverage on the site. The site's management strongly denied the charge.[52] In March 2016,Lloyd Grove ofThe Daily Beast characterized the website as "Trump-friendly", writing thatBreitbart News "regularly savages the GOP establishment, the media elite, the Washington consultant class, and theFox News Channel."[53]
On March 11, 2016,Breitbart News reporterMichelle Fields filed a battery complaint against Donald Trump's campaign manager,Corey Lewandowski, alleging that Lewandowski had grabbed her and bruised her while she was attempting to ask a question at an event.[54][55] After claiming thatBreitbart News's management was not sufficiently supportive of Fields,Breitbart's editor-at-largeBen Shapiro and Fields resigned.[55][56][57] ABreitbart News article published on March 14, 2016, accused Shapiro of betrayingBreitbart News's readers; the article was subsequently removed from the website. Editor-at-large Joel Pollak apologized for writing the article, saying he had done so in an attempt "to make light of a significant company event".[58][59] The website's spokesperson Kurt Bardella also resigned following the incident, objecting to the company's handling of the incident and its favorable coverage of Trump.[6][58] By March 14, several top executives and journalists atBreitbart News had resigned, withThe New York Times saying that "Breitbart's unabashed embrace of Mr. Trump, particularly at the seeming expense of its own reporter, struck them as a betrayal of its mission."[60] Former employees accused Bannon of having "turned a website founded on anti-authoritarian grounds into a de facto propaganda outlet for Mr. Trump."[25]
On August 17, 2016, Bannon stepped down from his role as executive chairman to join theTrump campaign as its new CEO.[61][62]
On August 25, Trump's opponentHillary Clinton criticized him for hiring Bannon as his CEO in her rally in Reno, Nevada. She quoted theSouthern Poverty Law Center's view that the site embraces "ideas on the extremist fringe of the conservative right. Racist ideas."[63] She also said that the "de facto merger between Breitbart and the Trump campaign represents a landmark achievement for the alt-right".[64] She also condemned the site as "the Democratic Party's media enemy No. 1" and "racist, radical and offensive".[25]
In November 2016, the cereal manufacturerKellogg's announced they would no longer advertise onBreitbart News, saying the site was not "aligned with [their] values". In response,Breitbart announced plans to boycott the company.[67]Breitbart announced they would be willing to go to "war" with Kellogg's over its decision to remove ads from the site.[68]
In January 2017, editorJulia Hahn resigned fromBreitbart News to work as special assistant to president Donald Trump.[69]
Milo Yiannopoulos, who had served as a senior editor ofBreitbart News since 2014, resigned from the company on February 21, 2017 after a video of him making controversial statements in relation tohebephilia surfaced.[70][71][72][73]
Allies of Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior advisorJared Kushner complained to Trump in April 2017 afterBreitbart published several unflattering articles about Kushner.[74] Shortly afterwards, the site's senior editors asked staffers to stop writing stories critical of Kushner.[75][76][77]
Bannon was appointedWhite House Chief Strategist in theadministration of US President Donald Trump and served in that role for seven months; he was dismissed from the White House on August 17, 2017.[78][79] That same day, he was again appointed executive chairman ofBreitbart News.[79] In January 2018,Breitbart News announced that Bannon had stepped down from his position as executive chairman.[80]
In October 2019,Facebook announced thatBreitbart News would be included as a "trusted source" in its Facebook News feature alongside sources likeThe New York Times andThe Washington Post. The decision sparked controversy due toBreitbart's status as a platform for the alt-right and its reputation for publishing misinformation.[81][82][83] In October 2021,The Wall Street Journal reported that Facebook executives resisted removingBreitbart News from Facebook's News Tab feature to avoid angering Donald Trump and Republican members of Congress, despite criticism from Facebook employees.[84][85]
Decline in advertisers and readership
From November 2016 to June 2017,Breitbart's readership fell faster than other news sites.[86] In the two months from April to June 2017, the site lost about 90% of its advertisers.[87] The decline coincided with boycotts aimed at getting advertisers to stop running ads on the site.[88] The boycotts were mainly organized by the anonymous online groupSleeping Giants,[86] which said on June 5 that 2,200 organizations had committed to stop advertising onBreitbart News (and similar sites) due to its controversial positions.[89][29][30][88] Soon thereafter,Breitbart News trimmed prominently displayed, overtly racist content and fired contributor Katie McHugh for postingIslamophobic tweets about the2017 London Bridge attack.[86][90]
By 2019,Breitbart had lost nearly 75% of its readership, going from 17.3 million monthly readers at the beginning of 2017 to 4.6 million in May 2019.[31] By October 2024, its monthly readership had declined to around 700,000.[32]
In August 2017, Joel Pollak, the senior editor-at-large forBreitbart News, described the "mission" ofBreitbart News in this way: "#WAR has been our motto since the days of Andrew Breitbart, and we use it whenever we go to war against our three main targets, which are, in order:Hollywood and themainstream media, number one; theDemocratic Party and the institutionalleft, number two; and theRepublicanestablishment inWashington, number three."[97]
Breitbart News has published a number of falsehoods andconspiracy theories,[9] as well as intentionally misleading stories,[11] including a story that the Obama administration had supportedISIS during insurgency against the Syrian regime.[10] It has sometimes published these misleading stories as part of an intentional strategy to manipulate media narratives viadisinformation.[12][98][11] In July 2010,Shirley Sherrod was fired from her appointed position asGeorgia State Director ofRural Development for theUnited States Department of Agriculture.[99][100] Her firing was largely in response to coverage inBreitbart News of video excerpts from her address to an event of theNational Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in March 2010, though it was later picked up byFox News.[99] Both NAACP and White House officials apologized for their statements after a longer version of her address was reviewed.
In April 2016, Stephen Piggott wrote in aSouthern Poverty Law Center blog that the "outlet has undergone a noticeable shift toward embracing ideas on the extremist fringe of the conservative right" and was using "racist", "anti-Muslim" and "anti-immigrant ideas".[101] Piggott wrote that the website was openly promoting, and had become associated with, the beliefs of the alt-right.[101]Breitbart News has published material that has been calledmisogynist,xenophobic, and racist.[25] The owners ofBreitbart News deny their website has any connection to the alt-right.[48]
TheAnti-Defamation League describedBreitbart News as "the premier website of the alt-right" representing "white nationalists and unabashed anti-Semites and racists."[102] TheZionist Organization of America rejected accusations of antisemitism, saying thatBreitbart News instead "bravely fights against anti-Semitism" and called for the ADL to apologize.[103][104] An article inThe Jewish Daily Forward argued that Bannon and Andrew Breitbart are antisemitic.[105] An article byShmuley Boteach inThe Hill disputed the allegations, arguing thatBreitbart defends Israel against antisemitism.[106] Alex Marlow, editor-in-chief ofBreitbart News, denies thatBreitbart is a "hate-site", stating "that we're consistently called anti-Semitic despite the fact that we are overwhelmingly staffed with Jews and are pro-Israel and pro-Jewish. That isfake news."[107]Science magazine calledBreitbart "a far-right site that avoids explicit white nationalism."[108]
Breitbart News has had staff members associated with white supremacists. An exposé byBuzzFeed News published in October 2017 documented howBreitbart solicited story ideas and copy edits from white supremacists and neo-Nazis via the intermediation of Milo Yiannopoulos. Yiannopoulos, together with otherBreitbart News employees, developed and marketed the values and tactics of these groups and attempted to make them palatable to a broader audience.[109][110] According toBuzzFeed News, "These new emails and documents ... clearly show that Breitbart does more than tolerate the most hate-filled, racist voices of the alt-right. It thrives on them, fueling and being fueled by some of the most toxic beliefs on the political spectrum—and clearing the way for them to enter the American mainstream."[109] In November 2017, British anti-fascism charityHope Not Hate identified one of the website's writers as an administrator of a far-rightFacebook group that serves as a platform for fascists and white supremacists.[111]
In a 2017 survey among US readers,Breitbart News was voted the third least trustworthy source among American readers, withBuzzFeed andOccupy Democrats being lower-ranked.[115] In an October 2018Simmons Research survey of 38 news organizations,Breitbart News was ranked the sixth least trusted news organization by Americans in a tie with theDaily Kos, with thePalmer Report, Occupy Democrats,InfoWars andThe Daily Caller being lower-ranked.[116] An August 2019 internal Facebook study found thatBreitbart News was the least trusted news source, and also ranked as low-quality, in the sources it looked at across the U.S. and Great Britain.[84]
Breitbart News has published several articles accusing theEnglish Wikipedia of having aleft-wing andliberal bias.[117][118][119] In March 2018,Breitbart News responded negatively to a pop-up on Facebook containing content from the Wikipedia article onBreitbart News that described the news website as "intentionally misleading", resulting in several users attempting to change the article's content.[118] In September 2018, Wikipedia editors "deprecated"Breitbart News as a source due to its unreliability;Breitbart News can still be cited on Wikipedia as an opinion or commentary source.[120][121]Breitbart News is also on Wikipedia'sspam blacklist, requiring special permission for links to the website to be used.[122]
Main sections
"Big Hollywood"
In 2008, Andrew Breitbart launched the websiteBig Hollywood, a group blog by individuals working inHollywood. The site was an outgrowth of Breitbart's "Big Hollywood" column inThe Washington Times, which included issues faced by conservatives working in Hollywood.[123] In 2009, the site used audio from a conference call to accuse theNational Endowment of the Arts of encouraging artists to create work in support ofPresident Barack Obama's domestic policy. The Obama Administration and the NEA were accused of potentially violating theHatch Act. The White House acknowledged regrets, and the story led to the resignation of a White House appointee, and new federal guidelines for how federal agencies should interact with potential grantees.[124][125]
"Big Government"
Andrew Breitbart launchedBigGovernment.com on September 10, 2009, with a $25,000 loan from his father.[126][127] He hiredMike Flynn, a former government affairs specialist at theReason Foundation, as Editor-in-Chief of Big Government.[128] The site premiered with hidden camera video footage taken byHannah Giles andJames O'Keefe atAssociation of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) offices in various cities, attracting nationwide attention resulting in the ACORN 2009 undercover videos controversy. According to law enforcement and media analysts, the videos were heavily edited to create a negative impression of ACORN.[129][130][131]
"Big Journalism"
In January 2010, Andrew Breitbart launched "Big Journalism". he toldMediaite: "Our goal at Big Journalism is to hold the mainstream media's feet to the fire. There are a lot of stories that they simply don't cover, either because it doesn't fit their world view, or because they're literally innocent of any knowledge that the story even exists, or because they are a dying organization, short-staffed, and thus can't cover stuff like they did before."[126] "Big Journalism" was edited byMichael A. Walsh, a former journalism professor andTime magazine music critic.[126]
"National Security"
BigPeace.com, which later became the "National Security" component ofBreitbart News, debuted on July 4, 2010. National Security covers foreign policy, the wars inIraq andAfghanistan, terrorism,Islamic extremism, espionage, border security, and energy issues.[132]
Breitbart News's London edition was launched in February 2014. It was headed at the time by executive editorJames Delingpole, described as a "high traffic hire" byThe Spectator's Steerpike column.[143] He co-founded it withRaheem Kassam.[144]
"Breitbart Jerusalem"
Logo for "Breitbart Jerusalem"
On November 17, 2015, the website launched "Breitbart Jerusalem", which covers events in Israel and the wider Middle East. It is edited by Israel-based American reporterAaron Klein.[145][146] Rabbi Shmuley Boteach has been an occasional columnist.[147]
Breitbart News played a central role in the 2009 ACORN video controversy, which resulted in the reorganization of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), as well as its loss of private and government funding.Breitbart News contributor Hannah Giles posed as a prostitute fleeing an abusivepimp and seeking tax and legal advice on how to run an illegal business that included the use of underage girls in the sex trade, while James O'Keefe, another contributor, posed as her boyfriend. They clandestinely videotaped meetings with ACORN staff who "gave advice on house-buying and how to account on tax forms for the woman's income."[150][151]
Andrew Breitbart paid Giles and O'Keefe $32,000 and $65,000, respectively, to film, edit and blog about the videos.[152][153] Giles paid $100,000 and O'Keefe paid $50,000[153] to settle a lawsuit brought by former ACORN employee Juan Carlos Vera regarding the videos.[154][155]
Subsequent investigations by theBrooklyn District Attorney's office and the California Attorney General found the videos were heavily edited in an attempt to make ACORN's responses "appear more sinister",[151][156][157] and contributed to the group's demise.[158][159]Clark Hoyt,The New York Timespublic editor, wrote, "The videos were heavily edited. The sequence of some conversations was changed. Some workers seemed concerned for Giles, one advising her to get legal help. In two cities, ACORN workers called the police. But the most damning words match the transcripts and the audio, and do not seem out of context." However, a former Massachusetts Attorney General hired to investigate the matter found no pattern of illegal conduct by the ACORN employees and said the news media should have been far more skeptical, demanding the raw video from which the edited versions were produced.[160]
In July 2010,Breitbart News released an edited video titled "Proof NAACP Awards Racism" which featured USDA official Shirley Sherrod speaking at an NAACP fundraising dinner in March 2010. In the video, Sherrod admits to a racial reluctance to help a white farmer obtain government aid. As a result of the video, the NAACP condemned Sherrod's remarks, and U.S. government officials called on Sherrod to resign, which she did.[99][161]
The NAACP later posted the longer 43-minute video of the speech.[161][162] In it, Sherrod said her reluctance to help a white man was wrong, and she had ended up assisting him. The NAACP then reversed their rebuke of Sherrod,[161] andSecretary of AgricultureTom Vilsack apologized and offered Sherrod a new government position.[163] Andrew Breitbart said that the point of the piece was not to target Sherrod, but said the NAACP audience's reception of some parts of the speech demonstrated the same racism the NAACP's President had accused theTea Party movement of harboring.[164] In 2011, Sherrod sued Andrew Breitbart and his business partner Larry O'Connor fordefamation.[165] In 2015, Sherrod and Andrew Breitbart's estatesettled the case.[166]
On May 28, 2011,Breitbart News'sBigJournalism website reported on a sexually explicit photo linked on New York RepresentativeAnthony Weiner's Twitter feed.[167] Weiner initially denied that he had sent a 21-year-old female college student the link to the photograph, but later admitted to inappropriate online relationships. On June 6,Breitbart News reported other photos Weiner had sent, including one that was sexually explicit. Two days later, the sexually graphic photo was leaked after Andrew Breitbart participated in a radio interview with hostsOpie and Anthony. Andrew Breitbart stated that the photo was published without his permission.[168] Weiner subsequently resigned from his congressional seat on June 21.
"Friends of Hamas" story
On February 7, 2013, Ben Shapiro published an article onBreitbart News reporting allegations that former Senator and nominee forUnited States Secretary of DefenseChuck Hagel (R-Nebraska) may have been paid to speak at an event sponsored by a group called "Friends ofHamas".Breitbart News said that the story was based on exclusive information from U.S. Senate sources.[169]
An investigation bySlate reporterDavid Weigel failed to confirm the existence of the purported group.[169] On February 19, New YorkDaily News reporter Dan Friedman said that the story had originated from a sarcastic comment he had made to a congressional staffer. "Friends of Hamas" was one of several groups which Friedman considered to be so over-the-top as to be implausible and obviously fictitious. He was investigating rumors that Hagel had been paid for speaking to "controversial organizations", and asked sarcastically whether he had addressed "Friends of Hamas". Friedman followed with an email to the congressional staffer asking if Hagel had received a $25,000 fee from "Friends of Hamas" for his speaking engagement.[170] No reply to the email was received, and the next day,Breitbart News ran a story with the headline "Secret Hagel Donor?: White House Spox Ducks Question on 'Friends of Hamas'."[171][172]
Shapiro maintained that the report was accurate, claiming that the source was not Friedman.[173][174] Writers forThe Washington Post,[175]New York magazine[174] andThe Daily Beast[176] criticizedBreitbart News for the "Friends of Hamas" story, calling it "wrong" and "made-up".
Nancy Pelosi/Miley Cyrus ad campaign
In April 2014,Breitbart News created an advertising campaign to launchBreitbart California, which included posters bearing an image of House minority leaderNancy Pelosi's head superimposed onto singerMiley Cyrus's body as seentwerking on California governorJerry Brown, spoofing the 2013VMAs.DNC Chairwoman and Florida CongresswomanDebbie Wasserman Schultz denounced the images as disrespectful to women. In response, House Majority WhipKevin McCarthy requested that his column be removed from the site.[177][178][179][180]
Misidentification of Loretta Lynch
On November 8, 2014,Breitbart News posted an article by Warner Todd Huston, which erroneously reported thatLoretta Lynch, President Barack Obama's nominee for attorney general, had been part ofBill Clinton's defense team during theWhitewater scandal about theWhitewater Development Corporation. In fact, the Whitewater lawyer was a different Loretta Lynch. After this mistake was pointed out byTalking Points Memo andMedia Matters for America,Breitbart News noted that the two Lynches were different people by correcting and appending the original article.[181] Andrew Rosenthal ofThe New York Times editorial page editor criticized this, writing: "The appended correction didn't really do justice to the scope of the misidentification."[182]
TheAmerican Journalism Review said "that Breitbart had let the mistaken fact stand in the headline and the article itself," and had published a second story containing the incorrect information on November 9. By November 10, the initial story had been deleted fromBreitbart.com.[181][183]PolitiFact rated the claim "Pants on Fire" and noted that the false claim had "already spread to other conspiracy, opinion and conservative news websites", as an example of how fast false information can spread on the Internet.[184]
Conspiracy theories about President Obama
According toThe New York Times,Breitbart News promoted the falsehood that President Obama was a Kenyan-born Muslim ("birtherism").[185] InDevil's Bargain, however,Joshua Green writes that Breitbart never promoted birtherism.[186]Breitbart senior editor-at-large Joel Pollak has denied thatBreitbart News had ever "advocated the narrative of 'Birtherism.'"[187]
In June 2016,Breitbart News falsely claimed President Obama supported terrorists.[10]
In March 2017,Breitbart News published a story byconservative talk radio hostMark Levin claiming that Obama hadwiretapped Donald Trump during his 2016 presidential campaign.[188][189] President Trump repeated the claims on his Twitter feed less than 24 hours afterBreitbart News ran the story.[188][190]
Conspiracy theories about Hillary Clinton
During the 2016 presidential election,Breitbart News were accused byRolling Stone magazine of promoting conspiracy theories including the debunkedPizzagate conspiracy theory, which alleged that high-ranking Democrats were involved a child sex ring.[191] The website made unconfirmed claims about Hillary Clinton's health, including asserting she had issues caused by a supposed brain injury.[192][193] A June 2016Breitbart News article presented Stone's conspiracy theory that Clinton aideHuma Abedin was involved with terrorism.[194]
False report of Muslim mob in Germany
On January 3, 2017,Breitbart News's Virginia Hale wrote that "At New Year's Eve celebrations inDortmund a mob of more than 1,000 men chanted 'Allahu Akhbar', launched fireworks at police, and set fire to a historic church".[195][196] According toAgence France-Presse, the story gave the impression of "chaotic civil war-like conditions in Germany, caused by Islamist aggressors".[197] The story was later shown to be false;[198]St. Reinold's Church is neither the oldest church in Germany nor was the church set on fire. While 1000 people did gather, which is not unusual on New Year's Eve in a public place, video footage from the scene does not show a "mob", and no policemen were targeted.[199][200] The official police report recorded an "average to quiet New Year's Eve" with "no spectacular facts to report",[201] while firefighters note an "almost normal weekend night" and state that a "safety net at the Reinoldi church caught fire by a fireworks rocket, but was quickly extinguished".[202] Witness said it was not the church roof that was scorched, but a construction scaffolding on the church's far side, away from the crowd.[203][204] The group that shouted "Allahu Akbar" consisted of only 50–70 people and was celebrating theceasefire in Aleppo.[203]
The false story was then subsequently picked up by an Austrian far-right website before it made its way back to Germany where politicianThorsten Hoffmann fell for it. In Germany, several newspapers reported onBreitbart News publishing the hoax and distorting facts.[199][205][206][207]Breitbart News initially declined to comment,[197][208] but later updated its story to state that it stood by its claims, which had been shown to be false, and the only correction issued was with regard to the church's age. On January 8, it published an article calling the criticism of its initial story "fake 'fake news'".[209] The follow-up story used a screen capture of different fireworks at the near side of the church, with no scaffolding.Ruhr Nachrichten, the original outlet and the alleged witness cited byBreitbart News, replied to the update, and stated thatBreitbart News had not contacted them or the firefighters present to verify their story. They also reiterated the accusation againstBreitbart News of exaggerating minor facts to give a false "impression that a 'mob' of 1000 migrants had shot at Christian churches in Dortmund and set them on fire."[210] The newspaper went on to accuseBreitbart News of not adhering tojournalistic ethics.Ruhr Nachrichten also accusedBreitbart of "using our online reports for fake news, hate and propaganda" and published video fragments recorded on site that contradictedBreitbart News's story.[200]
Climate change denial
In November 2016,Breitbart News published an article summarizing aDaily Mail piece that falsely claimed that record-high global temperatures were unrelated toglobal warming.[13] TheBreitbart article, byJames Delingpole, was cited by theUnited States House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, for which the latter itself was criticized.[211][212][213]Weather.com condemned theBreitbart story in an article titled "Note to Breitbart: Earth Is Not Cooling, Climate Change Is Real and Please Stop Using Our Video to Mislead Americans".[214]
In June 2017,Breitbart News published an article by Dellingpole that claimed that 58 scientific papers disprovedanthropogenic climate change. A number of scientists criticized the article, describing it as cherry-picking, derogatory, inaccurate, misleading, and employing flawed reasoning.[215] In April 2019,Breitbart News published an article that claimed that a scientific study on past climate proved that man-made climate change was a hoax. Climate scientists sharply criticized the article, variously describing it as ignorant, misleading, and misrepresentative of the study's actual findings.[216]
In November 2021, a study by theCenter for Countering Digital Hate describedBreitbart News as being among "ten fringe publishers" that together were responsible for nearly 70 percent of Facebook user interactions with content that denied climate change. Facebook disputed the study's methodology.[217][218][219]
Picturing Lukas Podolski in an article about refugees
In August 2017,Breitbart News featured a picture of professional German soccer playerLukas Podolski in an article entitled "Spanish Police Crack Gang Moving Migrants on Jet-Skis".[220][221][222] Podolski is neither a migrant gang member nor a victim of human trafficking.[220] The picture was of Podolski riding a jet-ski in the summer of 2014 in Brazil.[220]Breitbart News apologized to Podolski after the picture drew attention.[220]
False story about Northern California wildfires
In October 2017,Breitbart News published a false story claiming that anillegal immigrant was arrested in connection with theOctober 2017 Northern California wildfires.[223]Sonoma County's sheriff department responded toBreitbart's reporting, "This is completely false, bad, wrong information thatBreitbart started and is being put out into the public."[223]
COVID-19 misinformation
Breitbart News livestreamed a widely viewed video on July 27, 2020, featuring a group calledAmerica's Frontline Doctors, that made dubious claims related to theCOVID-19 pandemic and toutedhydroxychloroquine as a cure.[14] The group was led by Dr.Simone Gold, reportedly a Trump supporter who has advocated the use of hydroxychloroquine on conservative talk radio and podcasts.[224] President Donald Trump shared several versions of the video with his 84 million Twitter followers before they were taken down.[225][224] The video was removed by Facebook, Twitter, andYouTube for violating policies against COVID-19misinformation. The president's sonDonald Trump Jr. was restricted from Twitter for 12 hours for sharing it. The video event was funded by the right-wing groupTea Party Patriots.[225] The video had 14 million views and was shared 600,000 times on Facebook before it was taken down.[14][226][225]Breitbart did not immediately respond to CNBC when asked about the video being removed by Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.[224]
In August 2020, aBreitbart article cited a press release by Michigan secretary of stateJocelyn Benson about the state rejecting over 800 ballots cast by voters who died before the date of the election. The article was written in a way suggesting that the ballots were not legitimately cast and thus evidence of extensive voter fraud. In fact, the voters in question died after submitting their ballots. The article was shared byDonald Trump Jr. onTwitter.[227]
In November 2020,Breitbart News published an article alleging that "hundreds of unofficial Republican observers concerned about fraud" had been barred from observing the counting ofabsentee ballots in Detroit. The British disinformation analysis organizationLogically found that the claim was misleading, as both Republican and Democratic poll challengers had been barred due to both parties having exceeded the law-mandated maximum of 134 challengers. The article was shared by President Donald Trump on Twitter.[228]
Kaiser, Jonas; Rauchfleisch, Adrian; Bourassa, Nikki (March 15, 2020). "Connecting the (Far-)Right Dots: A Topic Modeling and Hyperlink Analysis of (Far-)Right Media Coverage during the US Elections 2016".Digital Journalism.8 (3).Routledge:422–441.doi:10.1080/21670811.2019.1682629.S2CID211434599.
Higdon, Nolan (2020).The Anatomy of Fake News: A Critical News Literacy Education.University of California Press. pp. 105–109.ISBN978-0-520-34787-8. RetrievedSeptember 9, 2022 – viaGoogle Books.Breitbart relied on fear-inspiring racist and xenophobic narratives that had salience with whites who were reacting to the economic anxiety over the Great Recession with racial resentment over the election of the first self-identified black president and the increase in the proportion of the US population made up of racial minorities. [...] The election of President Barack Obama saw Breitbart continue the long-standing American practice of spreading racist-laden fake news stories. For example, Breitbart stories claimed that Obama was born in Kenya and supported terrorist organizations. Breitbart's fake news stories were not only racist but xenophobic and Islamophobic
Bhat, Prashanth; Vasudevan, Krishnan (May 20, 2019)."National Review: Opposing "Trumpbart"". In Atkinson, Joshua D.; Kenix, Linda (eds.).Alternative Media Meets Mainstream Politics: Activist Nation Rising.Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 56–57.ISBN978-1-4985-8435-7. RetrievedSeptember 9, 2022 – viaGoogle Books.Third, writers atNational Review took a moral high ground and accusedBreitbart and Donald Trump of enthusing extremist groups associated with the alt-right, which the publication claimed were known for their misogyny, sexism, racism, and xenophobia. [...] By callingBreitbart "the homepage for peckerwood-trash racists and the white-power basement dwellers,"National Review accused the far-right media outlet of paving the way for white supremacists to enter the mainstream.
Bhat, Prashanth (December 10, 2019). "Advertisements in the Age of Hyper-Partisan Media:Breitbart's #DumpKelloggs Campaign". In Gutsche, Robert E. Jr. (ed.).The Trump Presidency, Journalism, and Democracy(PDF).Routledge. pp. 192–205.ISBN9780367891527. RetrievedSeptember 9, 2022 – via Open Research Library.By March 2017, they have collectively purchased less than 0.5 percent of Breitbart's inventory. These agencies have listedBreitbart to their list of brand-unsafe websites because the far-right site violated their hate speech policies (Benes, 2017). [...] In the case ofBreitbart, brands such as Kellogg's withdrew ads because they didn't want to be associated with a media outlet that produces racist and xenophobic content.
Victor, Daniel; Stack, Liam (November 14, 2016)."Stephen Bannon and Breitbart News, in Their Words".The New York Times.ISSN0362-4331. RetrievedSeptember 9, 2022.Critics, including some conservatives formerly associated with it, have denounced Breitbart in its current incarnation as a hate site steeped in misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, white nationalism and anti-Semitism.
^abcNovak, Viveca (July 21, 2010)."Shirley Sherrod's Contextual Nightmare".FactCheck.org.Annenberg Public Policy Center of theUniversity of Pennsylvania.Archived from the original on August 27, 2010.We've posted no shortage of pieces on political attacks that leave context on the cutting room floor to give the public a misleading impression. ... The latest victim of the missing context trick is U.S. Department of Agriculture employee Shirley Sherrod. ... a clip of several minutes of her roughly 45-minute speech surfaced on conservative Andrew Breitbart's website, where he labeled her remarks 'racist' and proof of "bigotry" on the part of the NAACP. ... It quickly became clear that the climax, not to mention the moral, of Sherrod's tale had been edited out of the version Breitbart posted.
^"Facebook offers a distorted view of American news".The Economist. September 10, 2020.ISSN0013-0613.Archived from the original on March 24, 2022. RetrievedMarch 27, 2022.According to CrowdTangle, a Facebook-owned tool that tracks how web content is shared on social media, the two most popular American media outlets on the site last month (..) were Fox News and Breitbart, two right-wing news sites.
^abEbner, Julia (2017).The Rage: The Vicious Circle of Islamist and Far-Right Extremism. I.B.Tauris. p. 64.ISBN978-1-7867-2289-8.LCCN2018411221.Meanwhile, 28-year-old VienneseMartin Sellner, founder of Austria's identitarian branch, receives remarkably good coverage by alt-right Breitbart News: the webpage runs headlines, features video and shares tweets of what they call Austria's 'hipster right identitarians'.
Stokols, Eli (October 13, 2016)."Trump fires up the alt-right".Politico.Archived from the original on January 15, 2018.... the unmistakable imprint of Breitbart News, the 'alt-right' website...
"The rise of the alt-right".The Week. October 1, 2016.Archived from the original on October 9, 2016.Another major alt-right platform is Breitbart.com, a right-wing news site...
Rahn, Will (August 19, 2016)."Steve Bannon and the alt-right: a primer".CBS News.Archived from the original on May 8, 2019.Bannon's Breitbart distinguished itself from the rest of the conservative media in two significant ways this cycle... The second was through their embrace of the alt-right...
^"Where News Audiences Fit on the Political Spectrum: Consumers of Breitbart".Pew Research Center. October 21, 2014.Archived from the original on January 5, 2021. RetrievedOctober 26, 2015.Just 3% of respondents get news fromBreitbart in a typical week, and its audience is decidedly conservative: 79% have political values that are right-of-center..." (31% are "mostly conservative" and 48% are "consistently conservative")
^abOthen, Christopher (August 15, 2018).Soldiers of a Different God: How the Counter-Jihad Movement Created Mayhem, Murder and the Trump Presidency. Amberley Publishing Limited. pp. 290–291.ISBN9781445678009.Archived from the original on July 15, 2023. RetrievedJune 21, 2023.Counter-jihadism already had a place in Breitbart, with both Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer on the payroll, but the movement ramped up in prominence under the new order. Left-wing magazine Mother Jones estimated Bannon invited counter-jihadists on to his radio show at least forty-one times.
^abGold, Hadas; Glueck, Katie; Vogel, Kenneth (July 10, 2015)."The Daily Cruz".Politico.Archived from the original on November 13, 2020. RetrievedDecember 26, 2015.
^Goodwin, Matthew; Milazzo, Caitlin (2015).UKIP: Inside the Campaign to Redraw the Map of British Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 175.ISBN978-0-1987-3611-0.
^Fitts, Alexis Sobel (June 21, 2017)."Welcome to the Wikipedia of the Alt-Right".Wired.Archived from the original on January 17, 2018. RetrievedJanuary 16, 2018.Breitbart, meanwhile, has published numerous stories calling out lefty bias on Wikipedia.
^Victor, Daniel; Stack, Liam (November 14, 2016)."Stephen Bannon and Breitbart News, in Their Words".The New York Times.ISSN0362-4331.Archived from the original on December 24, 2020. RetrievedFebruary 18, 2017.A June 2016 article by Dan Riehl chronicled the belief of Mr. Stone, a Trump adviser, that Ms. Abedin, an aide to Hillary Clinton, was connected to a terrorist conspiracy.
^Bandermann, Peter (January 1, 2017).Einsatz an der Reinoldikirche [Firefighter operations at Rheinold's Church] (Photo). Archived fromthe original on January 16, 2017.
