When I logged into Twitter yesterday and saw “Ben Shapiro” trending, I braced myself for one of two possibilities: Either the conservative commentator put his foot in his mouth, or, more likely, the pretend journalists at Media Matters for America had once again sparked faux outrage by misrepresenting something he said and stripping it of all context.
Naturally, it proved to be the latter.
The controversy started when Shapiro discussed the recent rehashing of the sexual misconduct allegations against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and like most conservatives, took a critical view. This isn’t exactly a radical position, seeing as the latest woman presented as an alleged victim by a botched New York Times report actually says she has no memory of the incident. So, seeing as Shapiro’s stance was pretty mainstream, the “watchdog” or, better, smear agent known as Media Matters had to get creative and invent a controversy where there was none. After all, they’ve got to bring in the clicks somehow!
Here’s how Media Matters hack Jason Campbell represented the totality of Shapiro’s comments:
Ben Shapiro dismisses allegations of sexual assault against Brett Kavanaugh with “Nobody has yet described Kavanaugh’s [genitalia]” pic.twitter.com/j7HiXsB5zb
— Jason Campbell (@JasonSCampbell) September 16, 2019
That’s right: He seized on one line, clipped it away from its context, and misrepresented Shapiro’s point to make it seem as if he’s “dismissing” any accuser who can’t describe their assailant’s genitalia in detail. This is typical Media Matters stuff. The reason it matters, though, is that people spread it without realizing where it came from. Knowingly or unknowingly, left-wing feminists and journalists took Media Matters’ smear and ran with it.
Watch Ben Shapiro die on the “nobody has yet to described Kavanaugh’s penis” Hill. https://t.co/dPZkRoo10o
— Molly Jong-Fast (@MollyJongFast) September 16, 2019
I had a man shove out his dick in front of me, in public, while I was sitting outside with a friend at a coffee shop. I remember his hair color, what he was wearing – don’t remember what his penis looked like @BenShapiro – primarily because I was trying to not see it. https://t.co/q6VkApnux0
— Sana Saeed (@SanaSaeed) September 16, 2019
Women, if you’re being sexually assaulted make sure you take close notice of your attacker’s dick because Ben Shapiro wants to know exactly what it looks like https://t.co/08JKgMBQS4
— Jessica Valenti (@JessicaValenti) September 16, 2019
Campbell’s dishonestly clipped video has almost 5 million views as of writing, and it prompted an entire Twitter moment: “Ben Shapiro dismisses allegations of sexual assault against Brett Kavanaugh.”
Too bad the entire thing is fake.
In the full clip, Shapiro specifically says that the inability to describe Kavanaugh’s genitalia is “not dispositive,” saying “maybe they were generic,” and simply offered the hypothetical as one example of the type of corroborating details the accusations against Kavanaugh lack. This wasn’t the core of his point, and he wasn’t using it to make a sweeping, broad dismissal as Campbell clearly, and falsely, implied.
Plus, the mention of genitalia description isn’t exactly wild in and of itself. As Shapiro notes, this was part of past accusations against political figures, and it is regularly used by law enforcement in the investigation of sexual crimes.
That’s not to say that women victimized by assault must or should remember the appearance of their attackers’ genitalia, which Shapiro never suggested, but rather that it is occasionally used as a corroborating detail.
Most of these five million viewers, though, will never see anything more than the Media Matters headline. They won’t watch the full clip or see anything more than Campbell’s one-line suggestion that Shapiro “dismissed” the allegations “with” an argument about genitalia. This is, of course, the fault of Media Matters, for their disingenuous, bad-faith approach to smear journalism.
But it’s also the fault of supposedly credible (at least, enough to be regularly published at the Bulwark) mainstream journalists such as Molly Jong-Fast and progressive activists such as Jessica Valenti. They, and liberal commentators more broadly, should know better than to mistake Media Matters for a credible source.
In reality, Media Matters workers are little more than salaried internet trolls. Their literal job is to sit in front of a screen all day watching conservative commentators, fast-forwarding through to find the one word in 1,000 that can possibly be twisted against them. They read thousands upon thousands of words a day, skimming through all context and valid arguments just looking for soundbites that can be distorted to discredit their political opponents.
Media Matters’ work is shameless hackery, plain and simple. Their “journalism” is a disgrace for sure, but the bigger disgrace is that anyone still takes them seriously.
