Topic: WorldNetDaily
In his March 16 WorldNetDaily column, Joseph Farah harps on his idea of the press having become lapdogs instead of watchdogs, adding "This is a constant theme for me – and, to be quite honest with you, ONLY ME!" First, Eric Boehlert might beg to differ, though to our knowledge Farah's has never noted this.
Second, and more importantly, Farah is once again implying that WND is the embodiment of his ideal of serving as "a watchdog on government and other powerful institutions – to root out our corruption, fraud, waste and abuse wherever they are found." As we've repeatedly documented, it's not. And Farah has declared the U.S. attorney scandal a nonstory, even though there is evidence that officials including Attorney General Alberto Gonzales have lied in their public statements. Indeed, we can't think of a single instance of government corruption WND has uncovered that directly involved the Bush administration.
The one place that currently comes to mind as consistently breaking news about government corruption these days is Talking Points Memo and its sister site TPM Muckraker. Indeed, as the Columbia Journalism Review has noted, TPM did the work to make connections that showed how fishy those attorney firings were after the story was dismissed by the MSM (and Farah), to the point where Time writer Jay Carney apologized for blowing off the story.
Also worth noting: Among the list of things Farah says is not the answer to the question "What is the proper role of a free press in a free society," he writes, "It is incorrect if you answer: 'To be fair and balanced.' " While on the surface, that appears to be a dissing of the Fox News approach to journalism, in practice it is his excuse to tell biased stories and ignore inconvenient facts. In other words, it explains things like Bob Unruh.
