Topic: WorldNetDaily
Joseph Farah spends his July 23 WorldNetDaily column bragging about how WND was "the news agency that actually broke the news about HSBC’s money-laundering schemes," based on Jerome Corsi's reporting.
Farah is, of course, lying. While Corsi's first WND article on HSBC was published on Feb. 1, other news agencies were covering the scandal before that.
Bloomberg Businessweek reported on Jan. 25 that HSBC "will co-operate with a probe by the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations and said it supports efforts to combat money laundering." Marketwatch reported a similar story the same day. The Wall Street Journal reported on it on Jan. 27. British papers the Telegraph and the Independent also reported on the story before WND did.
Corsi's contribution in his Feb. 1 article -- in which he acknowledged earlier reporting on the Senate probe of HSBC -- was detailing the claims of ex-HSBC employee John Cruz, who provided WND with "1,000 pages of evidence" of alleged HSBC wrongdoing. Corsi insisted that Cruz "came to WND ... before the committee’s investigation of HSBC was reported."
It's unclear, however, whether Cruz made any effort to cooperate with the Senate subcommittee investigating HSBC. You'd think that if Cruz was such a credible source, the Senate would be eager to talk to him, but the Senate's report on HSBC makes no mention of Cruz.
Farah went on to complain that "Corsi was fired by another investment firm for his investigative reports into HSBC." As we noted at the time, this raises the issue of why Farah was apparently paying Corsi such a non-living wage that he had to seek another job in addition to his position as a WND "senior reporter." Further, much of Corsi's work at the time he also worked at the investment firm carried a disclaimer that "The views, opinions, positions or strategies expressed by the author are his alone and do not necessarily reflect Gilford Securities Incorporated's views, opinions, positions or strategies," so it wasn't like they were exactly proud to have Corsi in their employ.
Farah went on to declare that Corsi "was right about HSBC," adding:
Could it be these press outlets and government officials don’t want to mention Corsi’s role in the fall of HSBC because of his long-standing association with the Barack Obama identity story?
Where was the rest of the entire press establishment when Corsi, whom many of these entities demeaned as a “conspiracy theorist,” was presenting documented evidence of widespread banking fraud?
Farah seems to have learned the wrong lesson here. It's not just that Corsi has been an unrepentant birther, he's been a birther who has repeatedly and deliberately refused to acknowledge any evidence that conflicts with his increasingly discredited birther conspiracy theories. To this day, WND and Corsi have yet to report on John Woodman's birther book and birther lawyer Phil Berg's claim that Obama is not using a fake Social Security number, among many other inconvenient facts.
Corsi's own track record of dishonest reporting means that intelligent people have no other choice than to look at anything he writes, birther or not, with a skeptical eye. He has so discredited himself that literally nothing he reports can be taken at face value, even when he's on the right track, as he was with the HSBC story.
Perhaps if Farah had insisted on Corsi living up to standard journalistic practices instead of allowing him to act like the right-wing hack he is, he and WND would have been taken more seriously. Instead, Farah has no one but himself to blame.
(h/t reader L.C.)
