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Update (3:01 P.M.)
The dominoes are continuing to fall at Breitbart News as two more prominent members of the conservative news outlet's staff have resigned.
Jordan Schachtel, Breitbart's national security correspondent, and Associate Editor Jarrett Stepman have both resigned, according to statements released Monday afternoon.
Schachtel said in his statement:
The company no longer resembles the ideals the inspired me to start writing for them three years ago[...]Breibart News is no longer a journalistic enterprise, but instead, in my opinion, something resembling an unaffiliated media Super PAC for the Trump Campaign.
In his resignation letter, Stepman explained:
Breitbart News has always been open about being a grassroots, conservative publication, but in my opinion we are working or perhaps even taking direction from a presidential campaign, which is unacceptable journalistic behavior. I believe Breitbart News is becoming less of a news site and more of a propaganda organization dedicated to the Trump campaign.
Hadas Gold of Politico posted both resignation letters on her Twitter feed:
Schachtel and Stepman have joined editor-at-large Ben Shapiro and reporter Michelle Fields in what seems to be becoming a mass exodus at Breitbart.
Stay tuned for more updates…
Original Story:
The Daily Wire editor-in chief Ben Shapiro has resigned his position as editor-at-large of Breitbart News on Sunday night.
Shapiro issued a statement explaining why he is leaving Breitbart, citing the lack of company support for reporter Michelle Fields, and stating his displeasure at the direction the news organization is taking.
Shapiro, 32, was close friends with Breitbart founder Andrew Breitbart before his death in 2012.
In the statement, Shapiro noted the following:
Andrew built his life and his career on one mission: fight the bullies. But Andrew’s life mission has been betrayed. Indeed, Breitbart News, under the chairmanship of Steve Bannon, has put a stake through the heart of Andrew’s legacy. In my opinion, Steve Bannon is a bully, and has sold out Andrew’s mission in order to back another bully, Donald Trump; he has shaped the company into Trump’s personal Pravda, to the extent that he abandoned and undercut his own reporter, Breitbart News’ Michelle Fields, in order to protect Trump’s bully campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, who allegedly assaulted Michelle.
Fields, the reporter who claimed that GOP presidential candidate Donald J. Trump’s campaign manager Corey Lewandowski grabbed her by the arm and pushed her to the ground after trying to ask Trump a question at a campaign event, also quit her job as reporter from Breitbart News. Trump's campaign has denied the incident ever happened.
Fields sent a statement to BuzzFeed News:
Today I informed the management at Breitbart News of my immediate resignation. I do not believe Breitbart News has adequately stood by me during the events of the past week and because of that I believe it is now best for us to part ways.
The fallout from the Fields-Lewandowski debacle seems to be regaining steam after the resignations of Shapiro and Fields, two well-known conservatives.
Here is Shapiro's full statement:
As a close personal friend and mentee of Andrew Breitbart’s, it saddens me tremendously to announce that as of 9:00 p.m. Pacific Time, I have resigned from Breitbart News as editor-at-large. I met Andrew Breitbart when I was seventeen years old and remained his friend until his tragic death; I signed on with Breitbart News two weeks before Andrew’s death because I believed in his mission.
I am proud of what we accomplished in the years following his death, fighting back against the leftist media and debunking the left’s key narratives. I have many good friends at Breitbart News, including editor-in-chief Alex Marlow and editor-at-large John Nolte, and I admire CEO Larry Solov for his dedication to ensuring a financial future for Andrew’s widow, Susie, and his four children.
Andrew built his life and his career on one mission: fight the bullies. But Andrew’s life mission has been betrayed. Indeed, Breitbart News, under the chairmanship of Steve Bannon, has put a stake through the heart of Andrew’s legacy. In my opinion, Steve Bannon is a bully, and has sold out Andrew’s mission in order to back another bully, Donald Trump; he has shaped the company into Trump’s personal Pravda, to the extent that he abandoned and undercut his own reporter, Breitbart News’ Michelle Fields, in order to protect Trump’s bully campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, who allegedly assaulted Michelle. I spoke with Michelle the night after the incident. She told me her story. That story was backed by audiotape, eyewitness testimony from The Washington Post’s Ben Terris, physical bruises, and video tape.
Both Lewandowski and Trump maligned Michelle in the most repulsive fashion. Meanwhile, Breitbart News not only stood by and did nothing outside of tepidly asking for an apology, they then attempted to abandon Michelle by silencing staff from tweeting or talking about the issue. Finally, in the ultimate indignity, they undermined Michelle completely by running a poorly-evidenced conspiracy theory as their lead story in which Michelle and Terris had somehow misidentified Lewandowski.
This is disgusting. Andrew never would have stood for it. No news outlet would stand for it.
Nobody should.
This truly breaks my heart. But, as I am fond of saying, facts don’t care about your feelings, and the facts are undeniable: Breitbart News has become precisely the reverse of what Andrew would have wanted. Steve Bannon and those who follow his lead should be ashamed of themselves.