Topic: WorldNetDaily
Bob Unruh writes in a Sept. 11 WorldNetDaily article, under the headline "Left's 'attack dog' goes bonkers on Fox News":
The Southern Poverty Law Center, which has unleashed damaging and unsubstantiated claims about conservative organizations as a standard business practice for years, and in fact has been named in at least two lawsuits recently over its alleged defamation of conservatives, now has delivered a letter to Fox News, claiming its reporting defamed the far-left organization.
The SPLC routinely attacks conservatives, such as its labeling the staunchly American values-based Alliance Defending Freedom and Liberty Counsel, and the family promoting Family Research Council as “hate” groups because of their religious beliefs.
SPLC, which has been linked to domestic terrorism and attempted mass murder, claims now that Fox News’ reporting on its activities was “inaccurate, defamatory, and irresponsible.”
The letter from SPLC spokesman James Knoepp to Fox complained that a report on “The Five” incorrectly stated that the organization, with assets in the hundreds of millions of dollars, “provided just $61,000 in ‘legal assistance.'”
SPLC claimed that was its “internal legal services” and that it actually “spent more than $1.8 million on out-of-pocket case costs for litigation brought on behalf of its clients.”
The organization said it worked on a case advocating for better treatment for prisoners and on behalf of vicitims of bail bond companies in Orleans Parish, Louisiana, among others.
“The show also implied there was something nefarious about the fact that the SPLC uses investment vehicles incorporated outside of the United States, going so far as to claim it constituted a money laundering operation,” SPLC said. “As Fox News surely knows, it is common for universities, foundations and other nonprofit organizations to have a portion of their endowments invested in off-shore funds.”
So, according to Unruh and WND, it's "bonkers" for the SPLC to expect a news organization to not tell falsehoods about it. That's to be expected given WND's irresponsible penchant for spreading fake news. WND's mocking also makes editor Joseph Farah's petulant demand that an obscure blogger correct things that are undeniably true even more hypocritical. Unlike Farah, the SPLC has documented facts to back up its claims.
The point of Unruh's article, though, is to argue that the SPLC deserves to be lied about because it purportedly was wrong to label anti-gay groups as "hate groups." As usual, Unruh never disproves the claim.
From there, Unruh's article descends into the usual anti-SPLC boilerplate. He also touted how "conservative leaders sent an open letter to members of the media calling on them to stop using data from the 'discredited Southern Poverty Law Center'" without mentioning that one of the signatories was his boss, Farah. That's an undisclosed conflict of interest, making Unruh's article even more of an instrument of revenge and even less an act of journalism.
