WND Obscures Evidence Against Dobson Topic: WorldNetDaily
A March 10 WorldNetDaily article by Alyssa Farah reported on how Focus on the Family founder James Dobson is "striking back hard" against allegations that he is linked to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. But by citing only a New York Times ad by the Campaign to Defend the Constitution -- which she is quick to dismiss as "a left-wing special-interest group" with ties to "the national Gay and Lesbian Task Force, a former ACLU director and the former president of the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League" -- Farah ignores other evidence of Abramoff's links to Dobson.
As Media Matters has noted, articles in The Washington Post and World Magazine (a conservative Christian weekly) also raise questions about Dobson's connection with Abramoff, mainly through Ralph Reed, a conservative Christian activist who was working for Abramoff. Additionally, Media Matters links to e-mails that lay out a Focus on the Family connection to Reed and Abramoff.
Alyssa Farah, by the way, is Joseph Farah's daughter. Unfortunately, she seems to be following in her father's shoddy-reporting footsteps.
UPDATE: We've noted Alyssa's dubious reporting before. Like father, like daughter: Think about it, won't you?
'Respected Jurist' Topic: Newsmax
A March 9 NewsMax article repeated criticisms of the Supreme Court issued by Alabama Supreme Court justice Tom Parker. The article describes Parker as a "respected jurist."
That claim is immediately undercut when NewsMax further describes Parker as an "ally" of Roy Moore, who was thrown off the Alabama Supreme Court for refusing to obey a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that barred the state from displaying the Ten Commandments in the state courthouse rotunda. That immediately tells you about Parker's views on following the rule of law.
But there's more that NewsMax hasn't told you. As the Southern Poverty Law Center informs us, Parker hangs out with some less-than-respected types, like officials with neo-Confederate groups the League of the South and the Council of Conservative Citizens. The SPLC also notes that Parker is also on record as hobnobbing with a couple obsessed with Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.
NewsMax really ought to be interested in that little tidbit, given its longtime obsession with Robert Byrd's long-ago KKK association.
New Article: When the Spin Levee Breaks Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center wants you to believe that levee topping and levee breaches are separate, unrelated events. The MRC is wrong. Read more.
Bill Press Is A Journalist? Topic: NewsBusters
In a March 9 NewsBusters post, Noel Sheppard noted that Bill Press criticized "his journalistic colleagues."
WND Makes Bogus Kaloogian Claim Topic: WorldNetDaily
A March 6 WorldNetDaily article by James L. Lambert (last seen here making dubious claims about child pornography) claims that Howard Kaloogian is "the front-runner for the San Diego-area congressional seat held by Republican Rep. Randy 'Duke' Cunningham, who was sentenced last week to eight years in prison on corruption charges." We have found no evidence to support Lambert's claim.
We were not able to find any poll numbers on that race, unsuprising since the final candidate list was finalized only on Feb. 28. But MyDD reported in January that internal polling for Democrat Francine Busby reported that "In head-to-head match ups, Busby leads all six potential Republican candidates by up to 14%." That presumably includes Kaloogian, who had declared his candidacy months earlier.
Phil Brennan, Conservative Lackey Topic: Newsmax
NewsMax's Phil Brennan does a fine job of spouting conservative talking points in his March 8 column, repeating not only the bogus spin point that there's "a very big difference" between a topped levee and a breached levee -- ignoring the fact that topped levees tend to become breached ones -- but also the MRC's dishonest attack on the CBS poll showing record-low approval ratings for President Bush, which fails to disclose the fact that the Democrat-heavy methodology being attacked accurately reflects the composition of the pool of registered voters.
The irony, of course, is that as Brennan peddles these tropes, he spends the rest of the column whining that President Bush is the victim of "the media's big-lie operation."
AIM Hangs With Sam Francis Topic: Accuracy in Media
In a March 8 Accuracy in Media column, Cliff Kincaid attacks David Frum for criticizing Robert Novak. In an aside, Kincaid added:
Another Frum target, columnist Sam Francis, who has since passed away, commented, "It would be nice if Mr. Frum, himself an immigrant from Canada, could decide which country is his own before he accuses others of hating theirs."
Francis has a documented history of expressing views that might best be described as white supremacism. And the site from which Kincaid links Francis' comment describes itself as "white nationalist."
Is Francis really the kind of person you want to be on record as sympathizing with, Cliff?
A Letter to WorldNetDaily Topic: WorldNetDaily
We've done it here before, but now we're taking it to the source: We've written WorldNetDaily's Joseph Farah requesting full disclosure and transparency regarding the Clark Jones libel lawsuit. Read more.
WND AWOL On Harris Implosion Topic: WorldNetDaily
As it has in most things related to the Duke Cunningham scandal and other Republican scandals -- and in defiance of its claim to be a watchdog of government fraud and corruption -- WorldNetDaily is nowhere to be found as Katherine Harris' Senate campaign implodes.
There's another likely reason for this lack of coverage, too: the first book WND published was written (well, sort of) by Harris.
Back when WND released Harris' book, WND editor Joseph Farah claimed, "This book is certain to be a collector's item for many reasons." Well, not really; it looks like Harris is yet another in the long line of felons and liars whose books WND has published.
More Poll Misrepresentation Topic: WorldNetDaily
The Media Research Center isn't the only ConWeb component misrepresenting polls these days.
A March 7 WorldNetDaily article on a Zogby International poll claiming that "69 percent of Americans believe public school teachers should present both the evidence for and against Darwinian evolution" fails to note that the poll was commissioned by the anti-evolution, pro-"intelligent design" Discovery Institute. This means that Zogby crafted the questions in such a manner as to promote the views of the institute, since it wouldn't be paying Zogby to do a poll that didn't reflect its views.
The WND article also noted a previous WND article claiming that "more than 500 scientists with doctoral degrees have signed a statement expressing skepticism about Darwin's theory of evolution." But neither that article nor the one citing it noted (as we have) that many of those signers have doctorates in disciplines that have nothing to do with supporting or disproving evolution.
NewsBuster vs. NewsBuster Topic: NewsBusters
With a March 6 NewsBusters post highlighting Chris Matthews' comment that Hillary Clinton is Dukakis in a dress," Mark Finkelstein somehow forgets to rehash the NewsBusters mantra that, despite significant evidence to the contrary, Matthews is liberal, liberal, liberal -- a view best summed up by fellow NewsBuster Noel Sheppard, who claimed that Matthews is a "San Francisco liberal" with an "ultra-left, San Francisco Chronicle columnist side."
I'm rooting for a street rumble between Finkelstein and Sheppard outside MRC's offices to settle this one.
The Daily Les, 3/6 Topic: The Daily Les
Judging by his March 7 WorldNetDaily column, Les Kinsolving seems pretty proud of asking this question at a White House press briefing yesterday:
KINSOLVING: Did the president watch any of the Academy Awards for prostitution and sodomy last night?
Scott McClellan actually issued an appropriate answer to Kinsolving's line of questioning: "I'm not going to dignify any more with a response."
Which prompted Kinsolving to grumble in his column: "With that, I was cut off from any more questions about what so many millions of Americans had seen the previous evening – whose pro-prostitution and pro-sodomy awards simply must have been known to Scott."
Actually, we're not sure "so many millions of Americans" care about Kinsolving's obsession with gay sex.
New Article: Leading By (Bad) Example, Part 2 Topic: WorldNetDaily
Joseph Farah's own reporting for WorldNetDaily is sadly emblematic of the dubious journalism standards across the entire site. Read more.
More Dishonest Poll-Bashing Topic: Media Research Center
A March 2 MRC "Media Reality Check" by Tim Graham lives up to our prediction that the MRC would continue to dishonestly attack a CBS News poll showing record low job-approval ratings to President Bush.
Graham writes:
As the blogosphere quickly discovered from CBS's online report, CBS "weighted" its sample to reflect an ideal cross-section of American adults. They adjusted the number of self-described Republicans up to 28 percent and Democrats down to 37 percent, and independents with the rest. That's hardly the exit-poll breakdown the networks found on Election Day 2004 (37 percent GOP, 37 percent Democrat, 26 percent independent).
Graham fails to tell his readers that the Democrat-Republican ratio of the CBS poll closely mirrors the general population of registered voters, as Republican strategist Rich Galen pointed out in a March 1 column at MRC sister site CNSNews.com. Graham also does not explain why a poll methodology based on registered voters is less valid or accurate than one based on likely voters or one based on the voter ratio of the last major election.
Instead, Graham dishonestly attacks the CBS methodology as "biased" despite the fact that there is a solid, logical methodology behind it.
NewsBusters Busts NewsBusters Topic: NewsBusters
A March 6 NewsBusters post by Noel Sheppard notes that the new issue of Popular Mechanics "took on virtually all of the media myths and misnomers that were so drilled into the citizenry by press representatives that many have become part of the public psyche." And -- though Sheppard doesn't note it -- NewsBusters itself.
Sheppard quotes the Popular Mechanics article debunking claims made by NewsBusters and other MRC affiliates that topping of a levee is a separate and unrelated event to a levee breach: "Most of the New Orleans floodwall failures occurred when water up to 25 ft. high overtopped the barriers, washing out their foundations."
Waddaya think, guys -- time to give up on this spin point?
