Conservative activist James O’Keefe talks citizen journalism at ‘Hating Breitbart’ screening

By: Patrick Svitek

Conservative activist James O’Keefe on Tuesday urged Chicago-area fans of Andrew Breitbart to take it upon themselves to continue the late provocateur’s legacy.

“I can’t do it alone,” O’Keefe told about 40 people in a Technological Institute auditorium. “They have come at me with everything. I’m still standing.”

O’Keefe, who brought down community-organizing giant ACORN with a series of undercover videos, was on campus to help promote “Hating Breitbart,” a new documentary about the controversial blogger’s life. The film follows Breitbart as he navigates several muckraking projects, leading up to his involvement in the sexting scandal that culminated in the resignation of U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.).

Breitbart unexpectedly died of heart failure last year after what director Andrew Marcus described as an “incredibly stressful lifestyle.”

Dane Stier, vice president of special events for NU College Republicans, called Breitbart a “very powerful voice for conservatives” and applauded the film for highlighting his jocular personality.

“The documentary showed a side of him we’re not entirely used to in terms of how other media portray Andrew Breitbart,” said Stier, a Weinberg junior.

After an advance screening of “Hating Breitbart,” O’Keefe and Marcus answered audience questions on topics ranging from O’Keefe’s next stories to the libertarian billionaire Koch brothers’ rumored interest in buying Tribune Co.

Asked how online pioneers like Breitbart could gain more traction outside conservative circles, O’Keefe stressed his followers have to understand where widespread exposure lies.

“You have to get covered by the mainstream media,” O’Keefe said. “That’s what success is.”

O’Keefe took particular aim at journalism schools, including the Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications. He laughed as he recalled walking through the McCormick Tribune Center earlier Tuesday, holding up a video camera and finding visibly uncomfortable students.

“There is a sort of fascist disposition toward what I do” at places like Medill, O’Keefe said.

Stier said he invited “at least a dozen” Medill professors to attend the discussion, but none showed up.

Marcus took a broader view of the state of journalism education, stressing today’s students must learn from Breitbart and build their own brands.

“They’re going to find out themselves on their own,” Marcus said. “They need to be creative about what they’re going to do.”

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Anthony Weiner Making Theatrical Debut in ‘Hating Breitbart’ Doc (Video)

The former congressman will be seen via news clips and the filmmakers are using his image to market their project.

As former congressman Anthony Weiner gears up for a possible run for mayor of New York, he is also making his theatrical debut in a film he probably wishes didn’t exist. Those involved with the movie, called Hating Breitbart, are also intending to lean on Weiner’s image — by way of news video of some of his embarrassing TV moments — to promote their film.

Weiner quit his congressional seat two years ago after he was caught tweeting lewd photos of himself to women he met on the Internet. His “sexting” turned into a major scandal in part because his wife, Huma Abedin, was at the time pregnant and an aide to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The entire episode, since dubbed “Weinergate,” is retold in the documentary film Hating Breitbart, which Freestyle Releasing will open in several theaters across the country on May 17, when it also becomes available on VOD.

Weiner did not participate in the making of the film but is seen via news clips, sometimes disparaging Andrew Breitbart, the new-media raconteur who exposed the then-congressman’s sexual foibles. The film is about Breitbart’s rise to prominence as a harsh critic of the mainstream media and as a favorite at Tea Party and other conservative gatherings.

Even though Weiner’s appearances are relatively few, the folks behind the film intend on making Weiner a large part of their marketing campaign, beginning with a video that will be released on the Internet, though The Hollywood Reporter has an advanced copy which is embedded below.

The 3-minute video is a timeline of the fiasco that began when Weiner denied tweeting pornographic photos of himself and insinuated his Twitter account had been hacked by Breitbart. Clips from numerous TV segments where experts attack Breitbart and defend Weiner are played over circus music. Besides multiple shots of Weiner, Wolf Blitzer, Chris Matthews and other news personalities are featured.

“CNN puts this Breitbart guy on and says the most outlandish things about complete, innocent people,” Weiner complains in the video. After Weiner calls a reporter a “jackass” for inquiring about his tweets, Breitbart is seen celebrating the exchange as the moment the media “got it.”

But Weiner’s primary miscalculation in the whole mess, Breitbart argues in the movie, was when he tweeted that his Facebook page and TiVo had been hacked, which, in retrospect, seems like Weiner’s hastily conceived plan to explain away a mistaken tweet that he sent to thousands instead of just the one intended recipient. By tweeting he was hacked — and the fateful tweet remained on his old Twitter account on Tuesday — he made accusations of a federal crime on one hand though on the other hand he was oddly disinterested in allowing an investigation.

The video ends with Weiner at a press conference where he comes clean about the tweets more than a week after Breitbart — who died a year ago — broke the story.  “To be clear, the picture was of me, and I sent it,” Weiner says.

Weiner, contacted by email, had no comment on the film or its marketing plans.

Read the story in The Hollywood Reporter