Topic: WorldNetDaily
A Nov. 30 WorldNetDaily article by Bob Unruh on the libel suit filed against WorldNetDaily and others by Tennessee businessman Clark Jones over a 2000 series of Al Gore-bashing articles focuses on the least relevant aspect of it -- the amount of money Jones is suing for, $165 million. After all, most civil lawsuits are settled for less (sometimes much less) than the original asking amount.
While Unruh busied himself with such irrelevancies -- he also throws in a recent history of libel claims -- he makes no effort to contact Jones or his lawyers for a response, though he quotes WND's Joseph Farah and WND's lawyer. Unruh also fails to address a series of conflicting claims WND has made about the articles over which it is being sued -- as we noted, it is simultaneously standing behind the articles but also looking for escape hatch by arguing that it merely reposted the articles and had nothing to do with their content.
Also on Nov. 30, WND conducted a poll asking, "Why is WND's record libel suit not getting national coverage as a 1st Amendment battle?" But this ignores the fact that WND itself has downplayed the lawsuit, at least until now. As we've previously noted, WND went 3 1/2 years -- from December 2002 to July 2006 -- without publishing a news article about it. This -- along with WND's one-sided coverage of it and its refusal to acknowlege our challenge to post all relevant legal documents filed in the lawsuit on its website as a show of objectivity and transparency -- suggests that there are things in those legal papers that WND would rather not see the light of day.
