Topic: WorldNetDaily
Beware when Joseph Farah writes a "news" article. It will undoubtedly include numerous journalisic breaches up to and including plagiarism, as we've detailed.
Thus, it's no suprise that the first thing wrong in a Sept. 23 Farah-penned WorldNetDaily article is the headline. It reads:
School strip searches mandated by House
With student molestations skyrocketing, lawmakers demand weapon in drug fight
First, as even the article itself states, the House bill in question does not "mandate" strip searches; rather, as even Farah himself describes it, it would require schools to "develop policies for searching students, or face the loss of some federal funding," and it would provide immunity for teachers and administrators regarding those searches. Mandating a policy on strip searches is not the same thing as mandating the searches themselves.
Second, Farah offers no objective documentation to support the idea that "student molestations" are, in fact, "skyrocketing." What he offers instead is a qualified claim: that "student molestations seem to be reaching epidemic proportions in schools across America" (italics ours). In fact, all WND has done is compile anecdotal examples and attempt to pass them off as a "trend."
Farah states that "WND has documented the incidents of teacher-student sex throughout the country – particularly the new trend of female teachers molesting male students." But, as we've pointed out, this list was cribbed from a gossip site and stretches back more than 15 years, which hardly makes it a "new trend." And again, there's no explanation of why WND is placing such a focus on "female teachers molesting male students."
Farah concludes: "WND news editor Joe Kovacs, who has spearheaded the research on this trend, is scheduled to appear Wednesday on "The O'Reilly Factor" on the Fox News Channel to discuss the issue." Given O'Reilly's history of misinformation, that seems like the perfect venue for Kovacs.
