Getting Serious
Topic: Newsmax
Having the likes of Wes Vernon and Jon Dougherty do its reporting, NewsMax has for years been far behind its competitors WorldNetDaily and CNSNews.com in original non-opinion news. It may be starting to get serious: A Jan. 7 article on possible fallout from the fact that Duke Cunningham was secretly taping conversations for the feds has on its byline Paul Rodriguez, the former editor of the Moonie-run Insight magazine (killed off as a print publication in 2004, it lives on as a website). It's a surprisingly well-done story too, with only a couple of paragraphs far down in the article complaining that the Jack Abramoff scandal hasn't focused enough on Democrats (ignoring the fact that Abramoff did the vast majority of his personal dealings with Republicans, therefore that's where the focus is).

While Rodriguez does have those conservative-Moonie ties, he at least has a reporting pedigree to match Christopher Ruddy himself. That may not be saying much, but it beats the heck out of folks like Vernon and Dougherty, especially if NewsMax hopes to be taken somewhat seriously as a news source.

Rodriguez shared a byline with Anthony Kimery, who appears to have a history of focusing on homeland security issues (and was a contributing writer to Insight). He also appears to have written some Clinton-era scandal-mongering, though we don't know for sure since the links have gone bad.