The never-ending sleaze-fest that is Ben Smith’s successful but creepy “journalism” career hit another bump Monday in the form of conservative radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt. Smith has spent the better part of a decade on the national stage posing as an objective journalist while crusading for left-wing causes, and doing so in ways so unethical, even Gawker is shocked.
Smith and his site BuzzFeed stepped in it Friday. After the Supreme Court made gay marriage the law of the land across all 50 states, BuzzFeed dropped its pretense as an objective news outlet to openly celebrate the ruling. Like many other left-wing sites, BuzzFeed altered its logo to resemble the anti-Christian gay pride flag.
When questioned on it, Smith finally admitted what I have been warning people about since 2007 — that Smith is a left-wing activist, not a journalist.
“We firmly believe,” Smith told Politico, “that for a number of issues, including civil rights, women’s rights, anti-racism, and LGBT equality, there are not two sides.”
And naturally, if you believe there are not two-sides on those issues, how handy it is that those issues can be used to bleed into every other political issue, be it domestic or foreign policy. And you can bet it will bleed into BuzzFeed’s coverage of the 2016 presidential campaign.
Speaking with radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt Monday, Smith not only revealed what a provincial, bubbled elitist he is, Smith exposed his outlet as one willing to take sides against a billion Christians on the issue of same sex marriage, but not one willing to take sides on the issue of evil government regimes and Shariah Law:
BS: Like lots, like many, many other things we cover, these are arguments that we cover and that we don’t take positions on.
HH: Do you guys take positions, this leads me to the harder stuff for you now. Do you guys take positions on Castro being evil?
BS: You know, we, no, and this isn’t, we’re not in the position to take, like that this is often, I emailed you this before, and this is why I was initially reluctant to go on and was hiding out in Latvia, which is that when people who, when, I am sort of a connoisseur of really cringe-inducing interviews where the editor of the New York Times talks to an ideological, somebody who really cares a lot about ideology and comes across sounding really squirrely, because people who spend their time thinking about news are often kind of inarticulate on matters of ideology. It’s not the thing they’ve spent a lot of time on. They’re not that interesting in it. And instrumentally, as a journalist, it gets in the way. And so you know, and this is what I always tell our reporters. Like don’t, try not to use the word outrageous in a headline, because if something’s outrageous, the reader ought to read this thing and come away and say hey, this is outrageous, and shouldn’t need to be told. You know, we should, we cover horrific things happening in the world. We do not add paragraphs saying by the way, a mass rape by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia was evil. That’s just not our job. We report on it.
HH: I know, but when you report, for example, on Saudi Arabia, you’re reporting on a state that refuses Christians to practice their faith. You’re reporting on a state that beheads people. You’re reporting on a state that embraces Shariah. Do you have an editorial judgment that that is an evil state? Or is that not within, is that again above your pay grade?
BS: Hugh, that’s not the business. I mean, the value that we add is the reporting, as I see it, and so that’s what we try to do.
HH: So can you articulate for me, and I get it, I think I get it, but can you articulate for me what is the different between the need to announce on LGBT equality and the need not to announce on Shariah-governed states?
[Long silence]
BS: That’s a really good question.
Like I’ve said many times before, Smith goes beyond bias. He’s just a bad, bad guy. Sleazy, unethical… An evil genius.
Be sure to read the full transcript of the interview. This is who these people really are.
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