Rep. James Clyburn: Right-wing blogs are 'foolishness,' not news

Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina, the House assistant Democratic leader, on Wednesday warned that some online media outlets were spewing dangerous levels of "negativism."

"You have people's words and phrases being misrepresented and looped through the news media, thrown out there on the Internet, and people run with it because these things start getting reported in the mainstream media, and before you know it, people believe that stuff," Clyburn said on The Morning Briefing program on Sirius XM's POTUS channel.

"You know, the people of Germany believed Hitler’s foolishness that led to the Holocaust. They believed that stuff, and people will tend to believe what they hear through the media."

Clyburn accused right-wing bloggers of manufacturing controversies, citing the uproar revolving around Shirley Sherrod and ACORN.

Sherrod, a former Department of Agriculture employee, and the organization ACORN both fell victim to selectively edited videos published on conservative websites. In both cases, mainstream media outlets reported on the edited videos without questioning their original source.

"This ain't news, this is foolishness," Clyburn remarked.

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