Topic: WorldNetDaily
Thus far, WorldNetDaily's coverage of the Trayvon Martin shooting has been plagued by the plagiarism and theft of intellectual property we've sadly come to expect from WND.
An unbylined March 24 WND article on how "an eyewitness to the incident told police Martin was beating [George] Zimmerman before he shot him" is curiously devoid of any sourcing for its reporting. That, along with the lack of byline, a huge red flag that WND did no original reporting for this article and simply stole the content from other news organizations.
Joseph Farah followed up in a March 25 column by railing against coverage of the Martin case, citing the earlier purloined article as evidence. But an alert ConWebWatch reader noticed that Farah appears to have stolen from a New York Daily News article for an example of "real racism" -- a "13-year-old white boy" in Kansas City who was set on fire by "two black 16-year-olds" -- that wasn't getting noticed.
Farah rearranges things a little, but all the details he cites also appear in this article. From the Daily News article:
"It was pretty bad stuff," Detective Stacey Taylor told the TV station, adding that police are concerned the boy may have suffered damage to his eyes and lungs.
Coon said her son put out the fire with his shirt and called 911 himself. He was rushed to the hospital and was treated for his injuries.
She believes the students also attend East High School with her son, and said he will not be returning to the school. She also told KMBC her traumatized family plans now plans to move.
"My 5-year-old came in and asked me, 'Mom, am I going to get set on fire today?'" Coon said. "I was in tears."
Farah writes:
“It was pretty bad stuff,” Detective Stacey Taylor told a local TV station.
The boy himself struggled to call 9-1-1, according to his mother, Melissa Coon. He was rushed to the hospital where the medical team fears he may have suffered permanent damage to his eyes and lungs.
Coon said she believes the students attend East High School with her son. But she will not be returning her son there even if he recovers. In fact, her family is so traumatized by the attack they plan to move from the area.
“My 5-year-old came in and asked me, ‘Mom, am I going to get set on fire today?’” Coon said. “I was in tears. We were told it’s a hate crime.”
Reads strangely familiar, doesn't it?
Farah also writes: "By the way, it is entirely plausible, though it is too early to assume, that the perpetrators in this hideous attack were actually inspired by the media’s drummed up hysterics about racism in the case of Trayvon Martin."
Well, no, it isn't. Martin was shot and killed on Feb. 26; the Kansas City incident occured on Feb. 28. The Martin case did not receive any substantial media coverage outside Florida until mid-March. There were no "drummed up hysterics" in the media over Martin at the time of the Kansas City incident.
Which makes Farah not only a thief but a liar too.
