Hugh Hewitt Destroys Buzzfeed Editor Ben Smith over Click Bait Journalism

Hugh Hewitt Confronts BuzzFeed’s Ben Smith Over ‘Dead Cops Chant a Myth’ Story (Mediaite)

Things got pretty awkward this morning when radio host Hugh Hewitt asked his guest, BuzzFeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith about a post that went up on his website just a couple of hours earlier. As Hewitt quickly learned, Smith had not yet read the article. “I’m ahead of the editor?” the host asked.

The piece in question is headlined “The Origins Of The Alleged ‘Dead Cops’ Chant” but it appears that, at some point during the day it was promoted as “‘Dead Cops Chant’ a Myth.”

“The headline is misleading,” Hewitt argued, “because your reporter [Tasneem Nashrulla] says it’s not a myth, it’s just overstated.” After quoting a sub-headline that also appears to have been changed, Hewitt asked Smith, “What do you call that, that escalator of attention-grabbers?”