Here's a Franklin Center for Public Integrity tribute to the journalism of Andrew Breitbart.

What is it about right wing organizations who complain about so-called "liberal bias," set out to counterbalance said perception of bias with right wing hackery, and then when the money trail leads to a billionaire, they whine?

Steven Greenhut with the inaccurately-named Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity took to the pages of the Huffington Post to whine:

But in mid-February, the game started again. Another left-wing, foundation-funded journalism group, the Center for Public Integrity, released a report about our funding. Media Matters wrote about us yet again, and its headline captured the gist of all these stories: "Franklin Center Top Donor Is Right-Wing's 'Dark Money ATM.'"

We expect these groups to target us. That's their mission. Here's where it gets disturbing. Their circular hype -- I write about you and then you write about me writing about you -- caused enough of a stir to prompt some prominent journalism enterprises to bite at the story. First, the London-based Guardian newspaper published a piece headlined, "Media campaign against wind farms funded by anonymous conservatives."

My editors and I couldn't immediately recall even running any articles about wind farms, let alone leading a campaign against them. But there we were in a major news publication described as the cat's paw for "conservative billionaires who are funding the anti-climate cause."

The author, Suzanne Goldenberg, never contacted us. She regurgitated the CPI "findings." We tried to respond. Nearly two weeks after the story ran, we finally heard back from the Guardian's readers' editor. He wouldn't print a rebuttal, but agreed to include my letter in the comments section and link from the story to the comment. He edited the letter significantly, removing the key fact that Goldenberg never contacted us while she reported the story. His explanation: Our criticism of the reporter was "ad hominem."

These elite journalists can say what they want about us, but any of my reporters who did such shoddy work would now be unemployed.

Huh. Standards at the Franklin Center? I guess Greenhut forgot to fire the person who reported on Kyle Wood's lie about being attacked for supporting a Republican candidate last year. Remember that one?

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There is a formula for right-wing smears. We see it over and over again, some more elaborate than others. They find a way to be aggrieved at the hands of their targeted group, then blow it way out of proportion on the right-wing blogs and faux media until it makes its way to Fox News and the mainstream, like the Breitbart SWATters managed last summer.

This one, out of Wisconsin, is especially egregious. Follow along, because it's convoluted, which is what wingers love to do to confuse everyone. Via PRWatch:

Kyle Wood, described as a “full-time volunteer” for the Republican congressional candidate Chad Lee, last week told the right-wing website the Daily Caller, that he had been physically attacked and choked in his Madison apartment by an unknown assailant for being gay but supporting a Republican running against a gay Democrat. The odd tale, accompanied by staged-looking photos, was picked up by the Franklin Centersite Wisconsin Reporter and Breitbart blog. The Dane County GOP weighed in, issuing a statement backing Wood and his bona fides: “Wood is a full-time volunteer working with GOP 2nd District Congressional candidate, Chad Lee. He is brilliant, liked and respected by all who have worked alongside him on Lee’s campaign.”

Sigh. It's always the Breitbots in the center of these things. The story first spewed out of Media Trackers, an organization dedicated to inventing insane stories and calling them truth.

On Monday, October 29, the issue went nuclear when Media Trackers printed a list of “text messages” alleged to have been sent from Phil Frank to Kyle Wood. The messages were bizarre, racist, and threatening. The article and related tweets were meant to create the impression that Frank was not only responsible for the messages, but also for the attack on Wood. Media Trackers tweeted out: "EVIDENCE: @Mark Pocan's husband threatened gay Rep. vol. before brutal beating."

But Media Trackers had only Wood's word that the text came from Frank. Media Trackers’ Brian Sikma explained to The Capital Times that they did not see the phone, or the text messages and could not confirm if Wood even knew Phil Frank’s phone number. “He sent us the transcript of the exchange,” Sikma said. But Sikma did talk to unnamed people who told him Wood was a great guy, raising serious questions about the role of Chad Lee's campaign in the matter.

I'll bet you can write the ending, can't you?

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Paul Ryan sponsored an act that would allow rapists to sue victims who wanted an abortion.

This is, to say the least, bizarre. Sure, a little rooting for the local hero is expected - but when the biggest national news story is the Akin insanity, the biggest paper in Wisconsin takes a pass? The Paul Ryan Watch reports:

Paul Ryan is all over the national news stories about the Republican anti-choice agenda, since Todd Akin made the mistake of saying what he really thinks. Today's front page NY Times story, headlined Akin Controversy Stirs Up Abortion Issue in Campaign features Ryan prominently:

That agenda — largely eclipsed for two years by a protracted fiscal crisis and the fight over how to manage the federal deficit — has wedged its way, for now at least, to the center of the 2012 campaign. It is focusing attention on an issue that helped earn Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, a reputation as a flip-flopper, threatening the Republican quest for control of the Senate, and leaving Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, Mr. Romney’s vice-presidential pick, in the uncomfortable position of distinguishing himself from Mr. Akin, with whom he has often concurred...

[...] But this story, incredibly, continues to be missing from Wisconsin media coverage of the campaign. Ryan's role, his views on the issue, his phone call to Akin, their joint sponsorships of many far-out pieces of anti-abortion legislation -- scarcely a mention.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel certainly isn't ignoring Ryan or the race. Some very competent reporters -- Craig Gilbert, Don Walker and Dan Bice among them -- are covering the race and writing about it. But we keep reading "Local Boy Makes Good" stories and little or nothing about the controversy swirling around Ryan.

We are inclined to blame their editors, who must not be encouraging --if not actively discouraging -- their people from doing the real reporting they are capable of. That's a shame, as Wisconsin, a battleground state, gets a sanitized version of the news from its biggest circulation newspaper.