Topic: WorldNetDaily
After the election, Joseph Farah and worldNetDaily started sucking up to and latching onto Breitbart News, since its website was on the ascendacy through its close assocation to Donald Trump and WND's, well, wasn't. One of the things Farah did was to declare that any company that refused to run ads on Breitbart can forget about advertising with WND; Farah conveniently offered no proof that such companies had ever placed ads at WND, meaning that they probably haven't and WND is giving up no revenue from taking such a stand.
Farah was at it again in his Feb. 5 column, braving taking another stand that costs him nothing:
The federal government of Canada has pulled advertising from Breitbart.com.
In response, I’m going to do what I did when Kellogg chose to blacklist what many might consider WND’s competition in the independent online news community: Tell Canada to dump WND, too.
Our neighbor to the north might as well follow my advice as I have instructed my advertising department to block ads from the Canadian government as long as this anti-Breitbart hysteria continues.[...]
This is not the first time I have stood with Breitbart against the assault on diversity of opinion and worldviews that conflict with certain advertisers. In December, when the cereal company Kellogg announced it was pulling ads from our friends at Breitbart, I announced we would neither solicit nor accept its advertising unless the company dropped its Breitbart boycott.
That’s our position on the Canadian government as well.
Again, Farah offers no evidence that the Canadian government has ever placed ads at WND, which means he is once again giving up nothing by taking this stand. He did, however, complain that "it appears that an “inquiry” from a Canadian newspaper – the Toronto Globe and Mail – prompted the ban" by the Canadian government on advertising at Breitbart, and "This same despicable media outlet suggested in its story celebrating the Breitbart ad ban that the blacklist should be expanded to include WND and other highly trafficked independent voices." He added: "While I am gratified that the marketing firm running ad campaigns for Canada chose WND to be one of 398 media outlets worldwide, I regretfully have to turn down the unsolicited offer – at least until the government stops discriminating against other independent media outlets like Breitbart."
But according to the "despicable" Globe and Mail article Farah is citing, WND was simply on a "list of 398 sites approved for online federal advertising" compiled by the government's media-buying agency, and it's unclear whether any Canadian government advertising ever appeared at WND. Farah didn't mention that the Globe and Mail flagged two other right-wing sites on the government whitelist: Gateway Pundit and Newsmax.
The Globe and Mail also had this to say about WND:
And the list of approved sites for government ads still includes a number of other fringe outlets which have been criticized for fomenting hatred and conspiracy theories such as the racist “birther” movement championed by Trump.
[...]
WND.com (World Net Daily) was a leading voice of the birther movement, and its WND Books division published a book promoting the conspiracy. On Monday afternoon, the site’s lead story suggested the airport protests which erupted over the weekend in response to Trump’s ban on citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries was “just the start of ‘chaos’ planned by Muslim Brotherhood.” The article was by Leo Hohmann, whose new book, published by WND Books, is titled Stealth Invasion: Muslim Conquest Through Immigration and Resettlement Jihad. On Tuesday, a leading WND writer decamped to InfoWars, another fringe site which traffics in conspiracy theories.
Farah shockingly didn't respond to this other than a tepid statement that "While we believe WND would never incite racial hatred, discrimination or the subversion of Canada’s democratic system of government, we don’t believe Breitbart does, either." (He presumably didn't want to concede that a Canadian news outlet scooped WND on the fact that its own reporter -- Jerome Corsi -- quit WND for Infowars.)
