Topic: WorldNetDaily
Perhaps indicative of the state of its campaign to raise money to raise money to stay alive by its declared deadline -- it's still about $50,000 short of the $200,000 it said it needed to raise by March 1 -- WorldNetDaily and editor Joseph Farah are getting a bit desperate in its emailed pleas to readers.
In his Feb. 21 letter, Farah basically argues that if WND doesn't get saved, Donald Trump gets it:
So again, I just need to ask the tough question: Can you imagine America without the independent media during the critical 2018 election cycle – or with a weakened independent media that is struggling to stay alive?
You know what that will mean. It will very likely mean the hapless Republican Party will lose the Congress – making it impossible for President Trump to carry out his plans to restore American greatness, secure our borders, and continue the economic recovery.
And as I have said before, we all know the very first item on the Democrats' agenda should they retake Congress will be to impeach President Trump.
That’s how big this fight is. But WND is not just about the 2018 election. We’re about changing the culture of America for the better, about restoring the magnificent pro-American, free-market, constitutional, Judeo-Christian system our founders intended. We’re about saving America’s soul and restoring its inner greatness.
Two days later, Farah tried a different appeal, one that -- to put it charitably -- backfired:
Why are the independent media so critical to the future of America?
What is it that we do that the fake-news cartel doesn’t do?
We keep truth alive.
How important it that?
Here’s just one example from earlier this week.
Who else, besides WND, has consistently kept alive the memory of Seth Rich’s 2016 murder?
It’s a good example of what we do – almost uniquely.
We take a battering for it, too. It’s expensive to do this kind of reporting. And it’s costly in other ways than money. There’s real opposition to this kind of reporting. But we do it because it’s our job – the pursuit of the truth.
True, WND's obsession with Seth Rich is "a good example of what we do – almost uniquely," though not in the way Farah wants you to think. As we've documented, WND has been cynically exploiting Rich's death and pushing baseless conspiracy theories about it solely to fuel its decades-long obsession with hating the Clintons.
The article Farah is citing, a Feb. 19 piece by Bob Unruh, is problematic as well. Its two main sources for its claim regarding Rich is the Zero Hedge blog -- a fringe blog that published a false story that WND picked up in late 2016 -- and Kim Dotcom, a con artist and fugitive from justice who's hiding in New Zealand to avoid extradition to the U.S. on fraud and racketeering charges. Of course, Unruh fails to mention Dotcom's legal troubles.
So, yes, the Seth Rich pursuit is indeed a good example of what WND does: push conspiracy theories as a tool to fulfill the personal and political vendettas of Farah and Co.
If Farah is proud to be exploting a young man's tragic death for political purposes, maybe WND really doesn't deserve to live.
