Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily's Joseph Farah is so cute when he pretends his website has standards.
In an Oct. 27 WND article responding to reader complaints about ads for Democratic candidates popping up on the site -- which in all likelihood is less about the claimed argument of "free political expression" than it is about maximizing revenue -- there appears this:
"WND advertising messages should never imply endorsement – especially political ads," explained Farah. "WND commentators, including me, make their views clear in their columns and videos. None of them, including mine, necessarily reflect the corporate positions of WND. WND has rarely ever offered corporate positions in the form of editorials, like most newspapers do. That's because WND is and always will be primarily a news source. Commentary and political opinions are secondary to the primary mission of breaking news. This commitment and characterization distinguishes WND from many other websites and many other news organizations – perhaps even most of them."
Farah also reminds that, unlike any other news pioneer on the Net, he spent his entire professional career in the news business as a reporter, editor, top news executive and publisher and attempted, 14 years ago, to carry over the highest standards and practices from the old world of newspapering into the new medium of the Internet.
"We're doing the same thing we set out to do – with the same standards, the same mission," he added. "We're not an opinion site, like so many others out there. We are an independent news operation like no other in the world. There is no litmus test for the expression of political viewpoints at WND – unlike most other websites and media organizations. So, certainly, there has never been any temptation to ban political advertising based on the views of anyone at WND."
That's pretty much all balderdash. Farah's claim that WND is "not an opinion site" is false -- most original WND "news" articles are so slanted, through distortion or outright elimination of alternate sides of the story, that they are synonymous with opinion. We've caught so many falsehoods and misrepresentations in WND "news" stories that we've lost count. Only Farah could believe that such slanted, sloppy reporting equals having "the highest standards and practices."
Farah is also disingenous in pretending that his opinions do not represent the "corporate positions" of the company of which he is CEO and largest shareholder. Sorry, dude, but WND is Farah and Farah is WND. There's no logical reason to pretend otherwise.
And there is very much a litmus test for political viewpoints at WND -- liberal opinions must be heavily outweighed by conservative opinions.
See how silly Farah is being? Pretending he operates a real "news source" is goofy enough, but insisting he has nothing whatsoever to do with the website he runs? That's goofiness on stilts.
