Topic: WorldNetDaily
It wouldn't be Joseph Farah if he wasn't acting thin-skinned about his media competition, and he has devoted a couple recent columns to this thin-skinned attitude.
In his Feb. 4 WorldNetDaily column, Farah complains that "two big newspapers – one in the U.S. and one in the U.K. – chose to rewrite WND news stories, using content exclusively from WND, without ever once citing their source for the information." Farah names them both -- the New York Daily News and the UK's Daily Mail, dismissing them as "trashy tabloids" that "have their place" as "tomorrow's birdcage liners" which "have no professional standards" and "do very little real reporting"and are "mouthpieces for fat-cat corporate owners who have agendas."
But Farah went further in attacking one of those papers:
One of the reports, in the Daily News, even had a byline attached to its story, suggesting a reporter had demonstrated some enterprise in gathering the facts. Well, to me, it was like a thief who left behind a calling card.
So, I dashed off a note to Daily News staff writer Michael Sheridan with a little challenge: "I'm getting pretty sick of your uncredited rewrites of WND content. Do I need to complain to your editor and go public with this example of shameless unprofessionalism? Or do you want to just knock it off because it's the right thing to do?"
I never heard from Sheridan – so here we are.
Farah didn't mention that he made any similar attempt at reparations from the Daily Mail. Perhaps that's because WND uses the Daily Mail as a source. Over the past three months, WND has published four articles citing the Daily Mail as a source.
That runs counter to Farah's claim that the Daily Mail doesn't have "anything worth stealing." Which, of course, is exactly what WND is doing, credited or not.
Farah also claimed:
Have you ever noticed the way WND credits other media all the time?
If we get information from another news source, we typically cite that source – whether it's a major newspaper or wire service or a one-man blog.
Well, no, they don't.
In his Feb. 11 column, Farah was aghast that "AOL has agreed to purchase the Huffington Puffington Post for some $300 million and to place left-wing activist and non-journalist in charge of the entire AOL news operation," going on to call Ariana Huffington "a good shakedown artist."Farah goes on to lament that "it's amazingly sad what money can do to buy credibility where none actually exists.
It seems like Farah is having a fit of professional jealousy. Farah has been running WND a lot longer than Huffington's website has been around, and the value of his website is a lot closer to the $1 the Washington Times sold for than the $315 million AOL bought HuffPo for.
Farah complains that Huffington "made a name for herself with the Huffington Puffington Post by opening up her website to a parade of celebrity know-nothings to hurl the most irresponsible and groundless accusations against public figures with whom she disagrees." This conveniently ignores the fact that WND's main function upon its 1997 founding was to attack President Clinton, and functions today as a font of anti-Obama attacks.
Farah concludes with a personal attack on Huffington and her alleged devotion to an Indian guru. Given that the top two officials at WND have ties to accused cult leader Roy Masters, Farah has little room to complain about such things.
