Topic: WorldNetDaily
Joel Gilbert knows the best way to get WorldNetDaily to promote his new anti-Obama film and ignore his track record of falsehoods: Put Jerome Corsi in the movie. Read more >>
Thursday, July 31, 2014
NEW ARTICLE: There's No Place Like WND (For Discredited Filmmakers And Unethical Reporting)
Topic: WorldNetDaily Joel Gilbert knows the best way to get WorldNetDaily to promote his new anti-Obama film and ignore his track record of falsehoods: Put Jerome Corsi in the movie. Read more >>
Posted by Terry K.
at 11:18 AM EDT
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
CNS Promotes Levin Lawsuit, Doesn't Disclose MRC's Business Deal With Him
Topic: CNSNews.com Susan Jones writes in a July 25 CNSNews.com article:
CNS neglects to mention that CNS' parent, the Media Research Center, has a business relationship with Levin, in which the MRC pays Levin on his radio show and uses Levin's endorsement on its own websites. Though CNS presents itself as a news operation presumably subject to journalistic codes of ethics, it regularly publishes stories about Levin while failing to disclose that he's a paid spokesman.
Posted by Terry K.
at 3:20 PM EDT
WND Pretends 9-Year-Old Attack On Al Franken Is New
Topic: WorldNetDaily WorldNetDaily tries hard to push a scandal in a July 27 article:
There are two significant pieces of information missing from this unbylined article. First, WND published Skorski's book. Second, WND published it in 2005. That's right -- WND is reporting 9-year-old allegations as new. Heck, Skorski himself stopped promoting his book in 2006. And WND certainly won't tell you that Skorski's main attacks against Franken have been discredited. What we seem to have here is a desperate attempt to move some books moldering away in WND's seemingly vast warehouse. WND is currently selling the book for $19.96, which is about $19.95 more than you will pay for a nice used copy of it through Amazon. Further, WND's sudden concern about plagiarism is laughable given WND's own lengthy history of stealing the work of others. Before accusing Franken of "massive plagiarism," perhaps WND should clean up its own archives first.
Posted by Terry K.
at 12:34 AM EDT
Updated: Wednesday, July 30, 2014 11:07 AM EDT
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
NewsBusters Glosses Over Plagiarist's Conservative Ties
Topic: NewsBusters NewsBusters had little to say about BuzzFeed's Benny Johnson being fired for plagiarism, using it only as the introduction to a "weekend open thread" in a July 26 post. NewsBusters clipped a Huffington Post item noting that "Benny Johnson was previously with Glenn Beck's The Blaze, and has also written for Breitbart News," but it avoided further discussion of the unavoidable conclusion those ties mean: Johnson is a conservative. Outlets like the Blaze and Breitbart are ideologically driven -- much more so than the mainstream media outlets NewsBusters' minders at the Media Research Center love to fearmonger about -- so it's unlikely that Johnson could have gotten jobs there without demonstrating a commitment to right-wing ideology. That says a lot about right-wing media ethics, but you won't hear NewsBusters talk about that. NewsBusters also won't mention the fact that it previously promoted a Johnson post at BuzzFeed item later found to have contained plagiarized content. A February 2013 post by Randy Hall highlighted a Johnson item headlined “7 Things Democrats Would Have Freaked Out About if Bush Had Done Them”; that item now contains an editor's note that "This post has been corrected to remove phrasing that was copied from The Hill. BuzzFeed takes its responsibility to readers very seriously, and plagiarism is a major breach of that responsibility." NewsBusters has long covered for the mistakes of conservative writers. When conservative Washington Post blogger Ben Domenech was forced to resign after evidence of plagiarism surfaced, the MRC did what it could to change the subject. Tim Graham asserted that "What the Domenech fiasco should show is that left-wingers like those Media Mutterers are quite furious in attempting to keep the liberal media as liberal as they can muster," and Greg Sheffield claimed that the Post "cave[d] in to left-wing pressure" to fire Domenech while not mentioning his plagiarism. (Interestingly, Domenech has rehabilitated himself, now running the the Federalist website, and NewsBusters likes to cite him.)
Posted by Terry K.
at 1:51 PM EDT
WND's Loudon Tries To Capitalize On Teen Daughter's Relationship With 57-Year-Old Actor
Topic: WorldNetDaily What to make of Gina Loudon? We've already noted her apparent mental health issues as manifested in the dishonesty and Obama derangement that appears in her WorldNetDaily column. Now she has devoted her July 27 WND column to her 18-year-old daughter's relationship with a 57-year-old man. Loudon begins her column with this odd note:
Loudon can't possibly be that naive. The man her daughter happens to be having a relationship with (described in the headline as a "well-known actor" though we had never heard of him until now) is Steven Bauer, currently starring in a critically acclaimed TV show, "Ray Donovan," and he was once married to and has a son with actress Melanie Griffith. The two made their relationship public by attending a movie premiere together. Does Loudon really think that the entertainment media would ignore such catnip? Loudon's column is about her trepidation about, and ultimate acceptance of, her daughter's relationship. But it's about something else too -- damage control and an attempt to control the narrative. It's as if Loudon has decided that if anyone was going to "exploit sensationally" her daughter's relationship, it would be her. How else to explain the somewhat sultry-looking mother-daughter picture that begins Loudon's column (shown above)? That's an odd image to use in a column in which you're trying to convince readers that your daughter "has remained (and remains) pure until marriage" despite dating a 57-year-old actor. Loudon's attempt to capitalize on her daughter's relationship may be more disturbing than the relationship itself.
Posted by Terry K.
at 10:41 AM EDT
Monday, July 28, 2014
CNS' Hollingsworth Dutifully Transcribes More Right-Wing Talking Points
Topic: CNSNews.com Barbara Hollingsworth has yet another fit of lazy journalism in which she decides to serve as stenographer for a right-wing activist group in a July 22 CNSNews.com article. This time, she uncritically repeats attacks from the Institute for Energy Research that a new report warning of the dangers of climate change "is just another attempt by economic and political elites to impose a carbon tax on Americans." Hollingsworth not only fails to obtain response to IER's criticism, it fails to disclose that IER has strong ties to the energy industry, including donations from ExxonMobil and Koch-affilated interests. Such ties and funding would seem to counter Hollingsworth's implication that IER's criticism is objective and not agenda-driven, but she doesn't want you to know about it.
Posted by Terry K.
at 3:18 PM EDT
Of Course WND Loves Heckler Who Called Obama The Antichrist
Topic: WorldNetDaily WorldNetDaily devotes an entire July 25 article to how some random heckler called President Obama the Antichrist:
Curiously, WND fails to take the opportunity to let its readers know that it was an early rider on the Antichrist bandwagon. As we've documented, WND has been pushing this idea since even before Obama was elected, later promoting a anonymous YouTube video (since revealed to be the work of Carl Gallups, under his nom de smear PPSimmons) erroneously quoting Scripture to claim that the Bible has identified Obama as the Antichrist. This is a rare example of the WND self-promotion machine failing. (Image: Mark Geary's Kickstarter for "A Is For Antichrist")
Posted by Terry K.
at 12:55 PM EDT
Sunday, July 27, 2014
WND's Erik Rush Is Still A Putin Propagandist
Topic: WorldNetDaily Erik Rush loves serving as a propagandist for Russia's Vladimir Putin. He does so again in his July 23 WorldNetDaily column, in which he defends Russia from accusations taht it's responsible for the shootdown of the Malaysian Airlines plane in eastern Ukraine:
If this desperate attempt to take the heat off Russia in the MH17 downing sounds familiar, that's because it is. The state-controlled Russian media has been pushing various conspiracy theories aiming to impicate anyone by the Russians in the shootdown. We hope Rush is getting paid well by the Putin regime -- better than he gets paid by WND, anyway.
Posted by Terry K.
at 6:40 PM EDT
Friday, July 25, 2014
Tim Graham's Week-Long Transgender Freakout
Topic: Media Research Center Media Research Center director of media analysis Tim Graham has had an extended transgender freakout over the past week: In a July 18 NewsBusters post, Graham fretted that a “trans woman” who "worked for the John Kerry for President campaign in Florida in 2004" was running a a Republican to become Nevada's "first gender-confused state legislator." The same day, Graham huffed that "National Public Radio’s Diane Rehm Show devoted a unanimous hour on Monday to the transgender 'struggle for civil rights.'" He further huffed: "See how the media agenda and the transgender agenda are exaclty the same: build maximum 'visibility' toward a 'tipping point,' and exclude any and all opponents unless they neatly fit a convenient narrative of hate and bullying." And that's different from how right-wingers create Obama "scandals" ... how? But Graham wasn't done venting about the existence of transgenders. On July 23, he targeted NPR once again, grousing that "NPR’s nationally distributed Fresh Air talk show devoted 43 minutes to 'the growing number of people who identify as transgender.'" He added, "Naturally, religion and the idea of nature and natural law only came up as something triumphantly overcome." Graham is grandiously insistent on expressing his revulsion for transgenders every opportunity he can. That is his employer's agenda, after all.
Posted by Terry K.
at 5:20 PM EDT
WND Is Still Letting Corsi Write 'News' Articles About A Film He Appears In
Topic: WorldNetDaily It's pretty simple, really -- discredited filmmaker Joel Gilbert puts WorldNetDaily's Jerome Corsi in his new film, Corsi promotes the film at WND and hides the truth about Gilbert. Corsi holds up his end of the logrolling once again in a July 21 WND article, in which he touts "strong box office results at its premiere," adding how "Each showing had long lines and sellout, or near sellout, crowds that responded enthusiastically with sustained applause at the conclusion," and interviews with "various moviegoers" who invariably loved the film, as well as with Gilbert basking in said glowing reviews. Corsi didn't mention until the 32nd paragraph of his article that he appears in the movie he's writing about.
Posted by Terry K.
at 10:13 AM EDT
Thursday, July 24, 2014
MRC Censors Mark Levin's Bizarre Religious Attack on Jon Stewart
Topic: Media Research Center The Media Research Center has long promoted the musings of right-wing radio host Mark Levin without disclosing that it pays Levin to promote the MRC on his radio show. Now, the MRC is going into full protection mode for Levin. An anonymous July 23 NewsBusters post (attributed only to "NB Staff" -- why the secrecy, guys?) touts how, in a Fox News appearance, "talk-radio star and author Mark Levin attacked Jon Stewart for trashing Israel -- and then mocking critics by insisting he should be allowed to have nuance. The weird part of this post is that that it's essentially stenography: it simply transcribes Levin, who did not identify any specific statement that Stewart made supposedly "trashing Israel," and the posts adds no detail to substantiate Levin's attack. This was joined by a July 23 CNSNews.com article by Michael Chapman also transcribing Levin and also not providing any specific examples of Stewart's supposedly offensive remarks; Chapman vaguely states only that Stewart has made "acerbic jokes and comments concerning Hamas's ongoing missile attacks against Israel" and "has joked about the situation in Israel and Gaza." Not only do these MRC promotions for Levin fail to disclose the MRC's business relationship with Levin -- which makes its promotion of him look for all the world like a quid pro quo -- they had an offensive attack by Levin on Stewart. In a rant against Stewart last week on his radio show, Levin bizarrely declares, "I don't trust Jews who change their names." You know who else obsesses over Jewish entertainers who changed their names (and there have been a lot of them over the years, which means Levin also doesn't trust much of the mainstream of entertainment for, oh, the past century)? The neo-Nazis at Stormfront. (Yes, we know Levin is Jewish, which makes his weird obsession with Stewart's name all the more disturbing.) The MRC might want to take a break from its mutual back-scratching with Levin to explain to its readers why Levin and Stormfront share a hobby. UPDATE: A July 25 CNS article by Susan Jones documents a lawsuit filed against the Environmental Protection Agency by Levin's legal foundation, which also fails to disclose the MRC's business relationship with Levin. (Image from the MRC's Facebook page.)
Posted by Terry K.
at 10:15 PM EDT
Updated: Friday, July 25, 2014 2:23 PM EDT
NEW ARTICLE -- Misfiring Back: WND And Todd Akin's Book Botch
Topic: WorldNetDaily Has there ever been a more ill-conceived book-publicity strategy then WorldNetDaily's attempt to re-litigate Akin's controversial "legitimate rape" gaffe with such transparent dishonesty? Read more >>
Posted by Terry K.
at 9:27 AM EDT
Wednesday, July 23, 2014
Aaron Klein Anonymous Source Watch
Topic: WorldNetDaily A July 22 WorldNetDaily article by Aaron Klein declares that "Officials in Jerusalem are quietly wondering whether the Federal Aviation Administration’s prohibition on U.S. flights to Tel Aviv is partially a tactic to pressure Israel into a cease-fire." His source: "several Jerusalem diplomats who spoke on condition of anonymity." That, of course, is meaningless since Klein has given his readers no reason for anyone to trust the anonymous sources Klein loves to hide behind. Incidentially, Klein doesn't reveal his anonymous sources until the 15th paragraph of his article; before that point, he quotes actual, named, "aviation experts" who point out that "the FAA and airliners are likely taking necessary precautions after a Malaysia Airlines jet was shot down by a missile over Ukraine while at cruising altitude, killing all 298 people on board." In other words, by admitting the FAA is acting prudently, Klein undermines the entire premise of his article as an attack on the Obama administration. Oops.
Posted by Terry K.
at 9:03 PM EDT
CNS Claims Global Warming Has Ended Because Of Cool Weather In U.S.
Topic: CNSNews.com Can you spot the major science failure in the headline of Penny Starr's July 21 CNSNews.com article, "Global Warming? U.S. Temps Up 0.1 Degrees above 20th Century Average, 2014 Coolest Since 1993"? That's right -- suggesting that global warming has been disproved because of a few cool months in the U.S. is utterly dishonest.Starr herself confuses with her article:
Starr doesn't tell you, however, that globally, last month was the hottest June in 134 years of record-keeping. That would seem to be an important fact to note in an article about climate -- especially since it's in the same NOAA data from which she pulls her U.S. weather data -- but Starr doesn't think so. What Starr has done is written an article that is technically accurate but so absurdly narrow in focus as to be useless for anything other than political propaganda. Just the way CNS likes it, we presume.
Posted by Terry K.
at 6:50 PM EDT
WND Serves As Propagandist For Anti-Immigration Protests
Topic: WorldNetDaily Leo Hohmann writes in a July 18 WorldNetDaily article:
Well, that's an unusually precise accounting of protests. How did Hohmann obtain this number? Did he count them himself? He doesn't say. Indeed, there's no evidence Hohmann did much to "report" his story beyond going to one protest in Oklahoma City and talking to anti-immigration activists. Hohmann certainly won't report the truth about the protests, as Right Wing Watch found:
That's a far cry from the "thousands" Hohmann claims attended but can't be bothered to substantiate. It appears Hohmann is just regurgitating what the protest organizers told him. That's not journalism the way actual journalists practice it, but it's close enough for WND.
Posted by Terry K.
at 9:48 AM EDT
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