In a few days during July in 2010, the American media was obsessed with Shirley Sherrod, who in a tightly edited video clip had made apparently-racist statements about not helping a caucasion farmer because he was caucasion. She was quickly fired by Tom Vilsak, the US Secretary of Agriculture, who, like the journalists and the NAACP, had failed to look at the full video. The day after Sherrod was fired, the NAACP looked at the full video and realized that she was actually a racial healer rather than racist. In the fuller video, she said, “I have come to realize that we have to work together … we have to overcome the divisions we have.” Even as she used questionable language, such as “his own kind,” it should not be forgotten that the clan killed her father. In other words, she deserves some slack. At any rate, it was not long after the NAACP’s about-face that the agriculture department and the media were doing also doing an about-face. According to the NYT, “the White House and Mr. Vilsack offered their profuse apologies to her for the way she had been humiliated and forced to resign after a conservative blogger put out a misleading video clip that seemed to show her admitting antipathy toward a white farmer.”
The full essay is at "Bloggers as Journalists."
