The Huffington Post announced Thursday that articles written by conservative media mogul Andrew Breitbart will no longer be featured on the site’s front page. The decision was made in reaction to comments made by Breitbart to The Daily Caller.
In an interview with TheDC, Breitbart reacted to a campaign by activist group Color of Change that demanded that he not be featured on The Huffington Post’s front page. The organization called Breitbart “a liar and a race-baiter” and threatened that blacks would not visit the site if his content was prominently featured.
Breitbart told TheDC, “I have the exact opposite view on free speech that these left-wing freaks at Color of Change have: More voices, not less.”
He went on to call Van Jones, a former White House adviser and co-founder of Color of Change “a cop killer-supporting, racist, demagogic freak. And a commie. And an eco-fraudster.” Jones resigned from his position in the Obama administration following a series of embarrassing revelations, including that he had once signed a 9-11 “truther” petition.
Mario Ruiz, The Huffington Post’s senior vice president for media relations, released a statement to TheDC on the decision.
“Andrew Brietbart’s [sic] ad hominem attack on Van Jones in The Daily Caller violates the tenets of debate and civil discourse we have strived for since the day we launched. As a result, we will no longer feature his posts on the front page,” Ruiz wrote.
The statement continued, “Our decision today recognizes that placing posts on the front page is an editorial call that elevates some posts over others, and is an indication of how seriously we take these judgment calls.”
According to Ruiz, Breitbart will continue to be allowed to author content for the site, “provided it adheres to our editorial guidelines, as the two posts he published on HuffPost did.” The guidelines “include a strict prohibition on ad hominem attacks.”
The Huffington Post had initially dismissed the demands made by Color of Change. In an earlier statement to TheDC, Ruiz wrote that “dialogue — from a wide range of perspectives — is preferable to silence.”