Liberal watchdog Media Matters revealed that Andrew Breitbart‘s Big Journalism website repeatedly published an altered version of an anti-Semitic Nazi-era propaganda cartoon.
The Nazi cartoon shows Jewish control over the American press. The caption translates roughly to “An information ministry for the United States. What’s the name? A new name for the same old thing.”
In the altered version, the Star of David is removed from the necktie, the caricatured hooked nose is straightened somewhat, and what appears to be a Barack Obama campaign logo has been added.
Breitbart responded that his blog had taken down the cartoon, prior to Media Matters‘ report, when editor Joel Pollak flagged the image as possibly offensive.
The above cartoon appeared in four Big Journalism blog posts, all since January 2011, and as Media Matters points out, it is an altered version of this cartoon from a 1942 issue of the German Magazine Kladderadatsch.
In Breitbart’s defense, his claim that the use was inadvertent is supported by the fact that the altered cartoon appeared on other blogs long before it ever showed up on Big Journalism, and several since.
Update: The offending cartoon has now been removed from all four Big Journalism posts.
