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Thursday, February 16, 2006
Show Your Work, WND
Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily is putting its inimitable spin on Dick Cheney shooting a hunting companion. A Feb. 15 article by Joe Kovacs reports on a song by Jill Sobule that, in Kovacs' words, suggests that "the vice president was hunting with a male companion as part of a homosexual love story."

Kovacs also lists what he calls "[o]nline reaction from those who have heard the song," but doesn't say where this reaction came from. Aren't journalists supposed to tell readers where they get their information from?

Yes, they are. But then again, Kovacs pulled information for a previous article on teacher-student sex from a gossip site.

And then again, too -- as we've repeatedly established -- WND isn't exactly journalism.

Posted by Terry K. at 6:23 PM EST
Farah vs. Gore, The Next Round
Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily's Joseph Farah has penned yet another column hatin' on Al Gore. At the end of it, he adds an "important postscript" about the libel lawsuit filed against WND by Gore supporters over a Gore-bashing series WND ran before the 2000 election. Farah again makes the following claim:

Understand that this lawsuit would be dropped in a flat second if Al Gore wanted it to be dropped. Understand also that WND did nothing wrong and libeled no one in the publication of this exhaustive series.

But as we previously noted, Farah has never offered any objective evidence to back up either of those claims, nor has WND offered any unfiltered evidence from this lawsuit.

Our previous challenge still stands: Since very few of WorldNetDaily's readers have access to the court records of Hardin County, Tennessee, where the lawsuit was filed (and where we assume it still resides), WND should prove that it has aspirations beyond promoting its editor's worldview (or is it a grudge?) and post all court filings in the case -- not just the ones that make WND look good or Gore look bad -- on the WorldNetDaily website. This way, readers can judge for themselves how ethically WND behaved or whether Gore (or, more accurately, Clark Jones, the guy who filed the lawsuit and claims he was libeled) has a case.

How about it, Mr. Farah?

Posted by Terry K. at 12:19 AM EST
Updated: Thursday, February 16, 2006 12:23 AM EST
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Cliff Kincaid's Fact-Free Criticism
Topic: Accuracy in Media
A Feb. 15 Accuracy in Media column by Cliff Kincaid declares that former Rep. Bob Barr is not a true conservative because he has been caught consorting with the likes of MoveOn, Al Gore and the ACLU in criticizing the NSA's domestic spying program. But never once does Kincaid defend the program.

That's because Kincaid was off making unsupported allegations elsewhere in his column. He wrote that "the ACLU favors the legalization of the possession and distribution of child pornography, as well as the legalization of dangerous drugs." Proof, please?

Then, Kincaid launched into another defense of Steven Hatfill, the "person of interest" suspected but never charged in the post-9/11 anthrax attacks. While Kincaid insists that Hatfill "is a patriot who believes in fighting the war on terrorism," it's worth noting that neither Kincaid nor anyone else at AIM has seriously addressed the fact that Hatfill has a history of associating with right-wing racist militants in South Africa (beyond whitewashing the connection as "politically incorrect").

P.S.: CJR Daily notes another recent example of Kincaid's inaccuracies.

Posted by Terry K. at 4:11 PM EST
CNS Smears Union Workers
Topic: CNSNews.com
A Feb. 14 CNSNews.com article by Susan Jones suggested that unionized hotel workers are lazy and unambitious. The lead of Jones' article:

Instead of looking for better jobs or job training, the nation's hotel workers are seeking more money and better benefits from the jobs they already have with the world's big hotel chains.

Jones offers no evidence that working in a hotel is a necessarily transient position or so awful that a "better jobs or job training" is preferable.

Posted by Terry K. at 2:07 PM EST
WND Blackwell Fluff Watch
Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily runs yet another article about an Ohio Republican political scandal, the only apparent reason for doing so being to fluff Ken Blackwell's campaign for Ohio governor. Blackwell, WND has repeatedly insisted, is not part of the scandal.

As ConWebWatch has detailed, WND can't be bothered with reporting on most other Republican-linked scandals, so we must assume that it has an ulterior motive (fluffing Blackwell) in reporting on the Ohio scandal.

Posted by Terry K. at 11:13 AM EST
The Clinton Equivocation, Part Deux
Topic: NewsBusters
NewsBusters' Noel Sheppard joins in playing the Clinton Equivocation card in a Feb. 15 post that cited NewsMax's "but Hillary whacked a guy, too" article falsely claiming that Hillary mowed down a policeman.

Posted by Terry K. at 11:00 AM EST
New Article: Swiftly False Revisionism
Topic: WorldNetDaily
According to Jerome Corsi, Ben Barnes was telling the truth about President Bush's National Guard record -- and Corsi apparently knew it during the 2004 election. Why didn't Corsi say so then, or stop the Swift Boat Veterans from attacking Barnes? Read more.

Posted by Terry K. at 12:48 AM EST
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Insensitivity Watch
Topic: WorldNetDaily
Which of these things is not like the others on this WorldNetDaily front-page capture from this evening?



That's right -- WND has mixed a promo for a Michael Moore-bashing video with its Cheney-shooting coverage. Not quite as gloriously insensitive as WND's pairing of an article about the suicide of a child prodigy with a promo for a child-training book that offers the parental advice, "Keep your objective in mind -- subjection of their will," but still...

UPDATE: Edited for clarity.

Posted by Terry K. at 11:28 PM EST
Updated: Wednesday, February 15, 2006 12:35 AM EST
Nabobs of Negativity
Topic: NewsBusters
A Feb. 14 NewsBusters post by Mark Finkelstein describes an episode of "Hardball" focusing on Dick Cheney's shooting of a hunting companion as "decidedly downbeat." "grim," pessimistic," "the apotheosis of vitriol," "an absolutely ceaseless cavalcade of criticism," finally stating: "The negative portrayal of the Vice-President and of the administration's handling of the matter was absolutely unrelenting."

And the positive side of the vice president shooting a guy, then blaming the guy for getting shot, is ... what, Mark?

Posted by Terry K. at 9:50 PM EST
Evidence, Please
Topic: Accuracy in Media
A Feb. 14 Accuracy in Media press release is long on accusations and posturing but short on actual facts.

The press release features Cliff Kincaid -- taking about from obsessing about Rachel Maddow's lesbianism -- accusing "the major news media" of behaving in a "rabid manner" regarding Dick Cheney's accidental shooting of a hunting companion. "From charges that Cheney was drinking to claims that the shooting was an assassination attempt, our media have behaved in a completely irresponsible manner that brings discredit upon the journalism profession," Kincaid said.

The problem is that Kincaid offers no proof that Kincaid has offered no proof of the media pushing "charges that Cheney was drinking to claims that the shooting was an assassination attempt."

Presumably, Kincaid was taking his marching orders from NewsBusters, which had just a single instance of something that resembled Kincaid's claim at the time the AIM press release was posted: an appearance on MSNBC's "Hardball" by Ron Reagan. (NewsBusters later noted an item at the Huffington Post suggesting Cheney was drunk, but since when are blogs "major news media"?)

A single instance on the third-rated cable news network does not a campaign by "the major news media" make. Kincaid might want to shy away from issuing sweeping, overbroad indictments based on just one incident.

Posted by Terry K. at 6:49 PM EST
Farah Doth Protests Too Much
Topic: WorldNetDaily
In a Feb. 14 WorldNetDaily column, Joseph Farah takes umbrage at a North Carolina newspaper critical of its coverage of a North Carolina speech by NAACP president Julian Bond.

Farah is real sensitive to the fact that WND got a quote by Bond wrong. Relying on an eyewitness report, WND reported on Feb. 2 that Bond was "equating the Republican Party with the Nazi Party" when he allegedly said that "The Republican Party would have the American flag and the swastika flying side by side." In fact, Bond said "Confederate swastika," which puts a different spin on things. WND didn't report that until Feb. 7 -- five days later -- forcing it to backtrack a bit and state that Bond "did not directly equate the Republican Party with the Nazi Party."

Yet somehow, according to Farah, the local paper, the Fayetteville Observer, is to blame for not reporting Bond's "swastika" comment at all, insisting that it was "the most explosive quote Bond uttered at the speech." Farah further defended WND's reporting on the event by claiming the quote was reported "almost completely accurately."

Well, when you've had to retract two articles in the past year because of the false information contained in them, like WND did, and have been caught red-handed plagiarizing news, as Farah was, "almost completely accurately" seems like a reasonable jouralistic standard by comparison.

And if you're going to bash "the Old Media" for allegedly "deny[ing] their dwindling number of readers, viewers and listeners the truth," it's best if you don't have a history of not reporting inconvenient facts. As ConWebWatch has documented, WND's Jerusalem reporter, Aaron Klein, has a history of whitewashing the terrorist history of the right-wing extremists he writes about, it couldn't be bothered to report on Republican political scandals, its coverage of the Terri Schiavo case was highly biased, it painted a soft 'n' cuddly portrait of an anti-abortion extremist, it falsely portrayed the admitted killer of an abortion doctor as innocent ... we could go on.

Before Farah starts criticizing the journalism of others, he needs to stand up and admit -- and then fix -- his own journalistic shortcomings.

Posted by Terry K. at 4:17 PM EST
The Twice-Weekly Les
Topic: WorldNetDaily
In the Feb. 14 edition of his twice-weekly WorldNetDaily column, Les Kinsolving weighs in on Tom Toles' cartoon depicting an amputee U.S. soldier, claiming offense that the Washington Post "used a triple amputee – with his head also covered with bandages – as a joke in a cartoon."

No word on whether Kinsolving found Mike Lukovich's cartoon -- which also used an amputee soldier -- similarly offensive.

Posted by Terry K. at 2:06 PM EST
The Daily Les, 2/13
Topic: The Daily Les
Les Kinsolving was on a roll:

KINSOLVING: WorldNetDaily has just reported that Navy Chaplain James Klingenschmitt's statement that under the new guidelines the Air Force will continue to punish and exclude chaplains who pray in Jesus's name, while Rabbi Arnold Oretznikov (phonetic) points out, "the bottom line has not changed; clergy may not invoke the name of Jesus Christ while offering prayers at official government ceremonies."

MR. McCLELLAN: Les, I don't know about those specific --

KINSOLVING: And my question -- my question: Why is a devout Christian like the Commander-in-Chief continuing to allow this censorship of Jesus?

Posted by Terry K. at 1:04 AM EST
Monday, February 13, 2006
The Clinton Equivocation
Topic: Newsmax
Shorter NewsMax: But Hillary whacked a guy too!

NewsMax plays fast and loose with the facts in this article as well. The article is falsely headlined "Media AWOL When Hillary Clinton Injured a Cop" and falsely claims that "Sen. Hillary Clinton injured a police officer who was manning a security post at the Westchester County Airport while she was rushing to a fundraiser." But later, the article refers to Clinton's "Secret Service driver." So Hillary didn't whack the guy after all.

Will NewsMax be dragging out the "Clinton body count" next?

Posted by Terry K. at 5:12 PM EST
CNS Misleads on Estate Tax
Topic: CNSNews.com
A Feb. 11 CNSNews.com article by Nathan Burchfiel, part of CNS' saturation coverage of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), paints a highly simplistic and misleading portrait of the estate tax, which Burchfiel calls the death tax (without quote marks) throughout his article. Only once does Burchfiel use the term "estate tax":

The death tax, also called the estate tax, places a tax on the assets of deceased individuals' before the heirs can gain access to the assets.

But that's an extremely simplistic and misleading view of the estate tax ("death tax" is a conservative term). As the friendly folks at the IRS tell us:

Most relatively simple estates (cash, publicly-traded securities, small amounts of other easily-valued assets, and no special deductions or elections, or jointly-held property) with a total value under $1,000,000 do not require the filing of an estate tax return. The amount was $1,500,000 in 2004 and 2005. For 2006 through 2008, the amount is raised to $2,000,000.

Burchfiel might want to have told his readers that the "death tax" applies only to large estates and that the vast majority of estates are untaxed.

Posted by Terry K. at 2:58 PM EST

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