James O'Keefe, the man who slew ACORN and on Wednesday toppled the CEO of NPR, is some new kind of journalist - Johnny Knoxville meets Glenn Beck in Michael Cera's body.
His critics call him a sneaky little punk who cheats context to destroy careers and lives.
His supporters, including his media mentor, Andrew Breitbart, call him the right wing's answer to a long line of left-leaning "hybrid troublemakers who get put on the cover of Rolling Stone, like Paul Krassner and Abbie Hoffman."
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With Vivian Schiller, the CEO of O'Keefe's latest target, National Public Radio, resigning Wednesday following yet another O'Keefe hidden-camera sting, everyone can agree that the 26-year-old conservative activist is real good at achieving his political agenda.
But is he really a journalist?
"What he does isn't journalism," said Marty Kaplan, director of the Norman Lear Center at USC's Annenberg School for Communication. "It's agitpop, politi-punking, entrapment-entertainment. There is no responsible definition of journalism that includes what he does or how he does it. His success at luring his prey into harming themselves is a measure of how fallible and foolish anyone, including good people, can sometimes be."
Breitbart told TheWrap that if Hunter S. Thompson's "drug and alcohol-induced narratives were believed at face value because they fit the left narrative," there's no reason why O'Keefe shouldn't be acclaimed in same way for innovating his own kind of Gonzo.
"James O'Keefe didn't just expose ACORN, HUD and now NPR, he also exposes the journalism racket as crippled by ideological fervor," added Breitbart, who said he regularly advises the former Rutgers student on media-related issues, but does not supply him with financial backing.
"He is an independent journalist," said Breitbart, who regularly features O'Keefe's videos on his websites.
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The rising right-wing star cut his teeth in the media while still attending Rutgers University, where he founded conservative newspaper the Rutgers Centurion. His first big splash on the main stage of political activism, however, came with his video sting operation on the community group ACORN.
The covertly-filmed footage, which was captured at ACORN offices in 2009, claimed to depict the workers giving O'Keefe, who was dressed in pimp attire and accompanied by a young woman posing as one of his prostitutes, advice on concealing illegal activities.
While the footage, which caused a sensation when it was posted on right-leaning Brietbart.tv, was criticized by many as being too heavily edited to offer a clear perception of the meeting, it did eventually lead to Congress removing all federal funding from ACORN, effectively putting the organization out of business.
O'Keefe again generated controversy -- and headlines -- in 2010, when he and several other activists were arrested for posing as telephone repair techs in order to gain access to the New Orleans office of Democratic Sen.
