Ethics The Media

Breitbart Has an Exclusive on Assholery

The frat boys at Breitbart Dot Com would like for you to know that they have an exclusive report on the location President Obama’s daughters will be visiting for Spring break, violating long-standing tradition adopted in the interests of protecting the security of the first family.

via Media Matters

Breitbart.com writer Matt Boyle reported on the specific location where President Obama’s teenage daughters are vacationing for spring break, ignoring the decades-old journalistic tradition that media outlets should not report on a president’s minor children when they are not attending “official or semi-official events” for privacy and security reasons. [...]

But Breitbart’s Matt Boyle disregarded such tradition and related security concerns when he posted an “exclusive” report on Breitbart.com detailing where the Obama daughters were vacationing for spring break. Boyle said that the White House declined to comment and that the Secret Service told him they don’t “confirm or deny trips for anyone under the agency’s protective detail, including Sasha and Malia.”

What was the point of the original Breitbart report that I refuse to link to? To complain about the cost to the Secret Service of protecting Sash and Malia Obama while they are on their trip to a place I will not reprint here.

Meanwhile in another dark corner at Breitbart, inquiring minds would like to know why Sasha and Malia Obama are permitted to go on Spring break with Secret Service protection while White House tours remain closed.

If the president were a conservative white man with white children, the geniuses at Breitbart wouldn’t even consider publishing this.