What did Andrew Breitbart know?

This is a somewhat dragging but nevertheless fascinating documentary about conservative activist Andrew Breitbart, the founder of Breitbart News. The documentary was released in 2013, one year after Andrew Breitbart's untimely death. Today, Breibart News is primarily associated with Steven Bannon, one of President Donald Trump's top advisors, and Milo Yiannopoulos, the notorious libertarian provocateur.

What makes the documentary interesting are the constant conflicts between Breitbart and the main stream media (with the exception of Fox News), prefiguring the current conflicts over “fake news” and “alternative facts” with almost ten years. Breitbart was the first conservative activist who turned alternative media into a successful enterprise with a combustible mix of righteous indignation, provocations and exposés of actual “liberal” scandals. He realized the power of social media (and the camera functions of I-pods!) as tools of the conservative pushback. Breitbart supported the Tea Party movement, which was treated by the media in pretty much the same way as Donald Trump would be treated one election cycle later. In fact, many of the people featured in “Hating Breitbart”, both conservatives and liberals, are the very same ones who played prominent roles in the recent election campaign and ongoing media wars: John Podesta, James O'Keefe, Anthony Weiner, John Lewis and Steve Bannon.

This documentary helped me put many things in perspective. Why do liberals hate Breitbart News? Why did Trump choose Bannon as his campaign manager? Why are the media so hated by many Republican grassroots? I also realized that Mike Cernovich, the present rising star of alt-media, is very similar in his approach to that of Andrew Breitbart. However, I also realized that Breitbart was a pretty civilized guy, more Ted Cruz than Donald Trump. Or, to make a leftist analogy, more Menshevik than Bolshevik! At least judging by the documentary, Breitbart was a jocular ex-liberal honestly upset about what he saw as liberal lies. For instance, he spend a lot of his time proving that the Tea Party really wasn't racist. Also, there was one network that seems to have covered for him: Fox News. Today's media wars are more brutal and vulgar. Andrew Breitbart's combination of humor and righteous indignation has given way to something darker, on both sides of the web filter…

With that reflection, I give “Hating Breitbart” four stars.