NY Times Reporters At It Again On Facebook: Mitchell Says NB Contributor Vadum Known As A 'Giant A**hole'

November 3rd, 2008 10:39 AM
NewsBusters.org | Media Research Center
Matthew Vadum (Right) Speaking Truth to Flower Power

As Bill Cosby said via Fat Albert and the Gang, it's like school on Saturday: No class.

NewsBusters.org Contributor, the estimable Matthew Vadum of the Capital Research Center, made an October 30th appearance on Comedy Central's The Daily Show, during which he discussed the many illegal activities of the community organizing group Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) and their long relationship with the media's all-time favorite candidate: Illinois Democratic Senator and Presidential candidate Barack Obama.  Soon thereafter, Mr. Vadum changed his Facebook Profile photograph to one of him hamming it up with his Daily Show interlocutor John Oliver. 

This was all too much for New York Times reporter Dan Mitchell.  Mitchell sent Mr. Vadum a poison Halloween Facebook email, which is hostile from start to finish and in which he calls Mr. Vadum the aforementioned body part.

The Mitchell email in its entirety, with the one word redacted so as to maintain our G-rating:

I notice that you have a picture of you and Oliver there. This seems to be fairly common among people who have humiliated themselves before millions of people on shows like the Daily Show - they pretend they were in on the whole thing and it's all just a big laugh. But it doesn't change the fact that the vast majority of people who know you will *always* know you as a giant a*****e. And this will never change. This video will be online forever, haunting you, and superceding everything you have ever done or ever will do. And rightfully so. You deserve it.

NewsBusters.org | Media Research CenterWhat could have raised Mitchell's ire to such a pitched and infantile degree?  Could it be that Mr. Vadum had finally done what the media have not, bringing the truth about the activities of the perpetually criminal ACORN and their multi-tiered relationship with the press's beloved Sen. Obama to the left-wing entertainment news arena? 

We may never know.  Mr. Vadum's reply was blocked by the sender: Dan Mitchell (The New York Times Company).

NewsBusters.org | Media Research CenterScreen captures of the Mitchell missive and the Times Company block are also available on the CRC's website.

This is just two weeks on the heels of the Times's Jodi Kantor using Facebook to contact friends of the youngest daughter of Arizona Republican Senator and Presidential nominee John McCain in an attempt to dig up child rearing dirt on the Senator and his wife. 

Again, class incarnate, and the very height of journalistic integrity.