Ken LaCorte: Showtime Displayed Antisemitic Hoax Cartoon to Smear Breitbart News

Showtime antisemitic cartoon (Courtesy LaCorte News)
Courtesy LaCorte News

Ken LaCorte of LaCorte News has published a YouTube video slamming Showtime for a recent episode of its miniseries, The Loudest Voice, in which it created a fake headline and an antisemitic cartoon to smear Breitbart News.

The Loudest Voice is a seven-part miniseries about the late Roger Ailes, who built the Fox News Channel into the dominant force in cable news. It is based on a book by Gabe Sherman, The Loudest Voice in the Room: How the Brilliant, Bombastic Roger Ailes Built Fox News–and Divided a Country; Ailes is played by Russell Crowe.

LaCorte, who ran Fox News’ Internet division for over a decade, recently started LaCorte News with former Fox editorial chief John Moody. The site focuses on media spin and censorship.

The website has devoted particular attention to scrutinizing and criticizing The Loudest Voice, given LaCorte and Moody’s knowledge of the inner workings at Fox.

By smearing Breitbart with an antisemitic cartoon, LaCorte explains, Showtime has crossed a line (video and transcript follow):

Showtime took a whole lot of liberties in its series, [The] Loudest Voice, a look at Fox News and Roger Ailes. But perhaps nothing they did was worse than commissioning an antisemitic cartoon and pretending Breitbart News had actually published it — something that just wasn’t true.

The Loudest Voice stars Russell Crowe as Roger Ailes, and is based on a book by Gabe Sherman. Sherman had written a number of articles hitting Fox, and the company fought back. Fox was helped by Breitbart News, a conservative website that published a number of pieces about Sherman — like these two that reported on his ties with left-wing activist George Soros.

[Link 1: Anti-Fox News Book Funded by Soros-Backed, Tax-Exempt Organization]

[Link 2: EXCLUSIVE — Soros-Backed Attack Dog Expands War on Fox]

Breitbart reported Sherman got a paid fellowship from a Soros-funded foundation, right after he announced the Fox book. But in Showtime’s world, this [news agency photo of Soros] became this — an antisemitic cartoon straight from the 40s, complete with an oversized nose and yarmulke.

Showtime didn’t want to be sued for libel, so it changed the name of the site, but used Breitbart’s layout, language, fonts, and even changed its orange “B” logo to an “R.” And if you missed it the first time, here it is again, complete with scary music and a shocked Seth MacFarlane.

Never mind that Andrew Breitbart and his co-founder were both Jewish, or that the cartoon never appeared. Showtime wanted to smear them, and Fox, as antisemitic, and they did it. We’ve reached out to both Showtime and Gabriel Sherman, and so far haven’t got a response. If we do, we’ll update this and let you know. Until then, know that there’s an artist somewhere in Hollywood, that Showtime came up and said, “Look, we want you to draw this really antisemitic looking cartoon, put the nose in, put the yarmulke on,” all in an effort to fool you into believing something that never happened.

Other LaCorte commentaries on the Showtime series are available here.

HBO has also distorted Breitbart News stories in the past. In 2012, the HBO series Newsroom twisted the tale of the Anthony Weiner scandal — which was broken by Andrew Breitbart — to vilify Breitbart News and the woman who came forward.

Breitbart News has reached out to Showtime for comment.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He earned an A.B. in Social Studies and Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard College, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

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