It was with a deep sense of sadness that I learned this morning, along with the rest of America, that Andrew Breitbart had passed away last night in Los Angeles. Yes, he was a fearless fighter and a serious media watchdog. That is why we at Accuracy in Media held him in such high regard.

One of our close associates, Dr. Peter Rollins (producer/director of “Television’s Vietnam”), wrote me this morning calling him a “young Reed Irvine,” Reed being the founder and long-time chairman of AIM. He wrote that “[Breitbart] was a real, dramatic force—a young Reed Irvine who was not afraid to look ‘eccentric.’ Indeed, like Reed, he thrived on it.  The pre-Weiner press conference was one of his best examples of ‘political theatre.’”

In 2010, we honored Andrew, and he honored us, by accepting the Reed Irvine Award for Investigative Journalism, for his work on exposing the widespread corruption at ACORN. When he accepted the award, he started by saying it was the first award he had won since being named Most Improved Player on his high school JV baseball team.

He was one of those people who every time he was in front of a microphone, or on TV, you had to watch. Certainly he had his haters and detractors, but for today at least, many on the left have chosen to offer respectful comments, as compiled by The Daily Caller.

But if you want to get to know him, I urge you to listen to or read the transcript to this 35-minute interview I did with him last May, and watch his 20-minute acceptance speech when he accepted the award from AIM. He was in the audience just three weeks ago today, as sort of a proud papa, when we presented the Reed Irvine Award for Grassroots Journalism to Dana Loesch, the Editor-in-Chief of Breitbart’s BigJournalism. We hope his legacy lives on in all of his wonderful, provocative websites. We’ll miss you, Andrew.

Our video team of Ben Johnson and Louis Tartaglia put together this tribute to Breitbart.

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