ConWebBlog: The Weblog of ConWebWatch

your New Media watchdog

ConWebWatch: home | archive/search | about | primer | shop

Monday, June 27, 2005
New Article: Les Loves Lott
Topic: WorldNetDaily
The model for Jeff Gannon, WorldNetDaily's Les Kinsolving, uses his White House briefing questions to push a revisionist history of Trent Lott's controversial remarks. Read more.

Posted by Terry K. at 1:14 AM EDT
Keeping Quiet
Topic: Newsmax
In neither its June 26 "Insider Report" nor a June 26 story by Carl Limbacher alleging that the alleged cancellations of appearances by Edward Klein on some TV shows "may be an unprecedented act of media censorship" does NewsMax note two important things regarding Klein's book "The Truth About Hillary":

-- The scads of documented errors in the book.

-- The June 24 interview Klein did with Al Franken and Joe Conason in which Klein is cracked open like a soft peanut on said errors.

Limbacher's article also fails to correct an error by Klein collaborator-slash-Hillary-hater John LeBoutiller, who called the claim in the book that Bill Clinton raped Hillary "Hillary's spin, an exaggeration of items of the book to make it look extreme." In fact, it was Matt Drudge, no Hillary lover, who advanced that accusation. (LeBoutillier's role in the book is not disclosed in Limbacher's article, either.)

Posted by Terry K. at 1:04 AM EDT
Sunday, June 26, 2005
The Rest of the Story
Topic: WorldNetDaily
Bartholomew tells what WorldNetDaily doesn't in its June 18 article on an anti-gay-rights rally in Poland. A group called the League of Polish Families led the rally; turns out it has ties to violence against gays and hosted a American who lobbied the Polish parliament for $10 million to "convert" homosexuals to heterosexuality, not to mention an anti-Semite in the family tree.

Posted by Terry K. at 12:51 AM EDT
Saturday, June 25, 2005
Tearing Down the Wall
Topic: WorldNetDaily
More evidence that a laudatory "news" article is a part of the package when you advertise on WorldNetDaily:

A June 23 WND article by Ron Strom paints a sympathetic picture of Voice of the Martyrs, an organization whose goals are "aiding Christians around the world who are being persecuted for their faith, fulfilling the Great Commission to spread the Gospel, and educating the world about the ongoing persecution of Christians."

Voice of the Martyrs and WND to have complementary agendas. Voice of the Martyrs is a regular supplier of articles to WND on alleged persecution of Christians (such as this June 22 article), and as ConWebWatch has noted, Christian persecution is the only kind of persecution WND cares about.

But Voice of the Martyrs is also an advertiser on both WND and Joseph Farah's radio show. And not only does WND have a history of of not properly disclosing its personal and financial interests in the topics it covers (Jerome Corsi, Jesse Lee Peterson), it has a history of presenting promotions for advertisers as news articles (Jack Wheeler, Move America Forward).

It's time for WorldNetDaily to come clean with its readers about this breach of the time-honored wall between news and advertising: Is softball news coverage what advertisers pay for when they place an ad at WND?

Posted by Terry K. at 9:56 AM EDT
Friday, June 24, 2005
WorldNetDaily's Idea of Balance
Topic: WorldNetDaily
A June 24 WorldNetDaily article by Ron Strom is a 49-paragraph opus about a man who is challenging his dismissal from an insurance company allegedly for writing an article critical of same-sex marriage that was published on several conservative web sites.

Of those 49 paragraphs, only four detail the response of the insurance company -- which hadn't even been served with the man's lawsuit challenging his dismissal -- and they don't show up until paragraph 40.

Posted by Terry K. at 3:33 PM EDT
When In Doubt, Bash a Clinton
Topic: Newsmax
NewsMax's chosen method of distracting from Bush adviser Karl Rove's claim that Democrats are soft on terror was a June 23 atricle that dragged out a post-9/11 speech by Bill Clinton that, according to the headline, "proves Rove right."

In the speech, Clinton noted the Crusades, slavery and the treatement of native Americans as examples of how "the killing of noncombatants for economic, political, or religious reasons has a very long history." NewsMax selectively cites from Clinton's speech, then concludes: "By the time Mr. Clinton was done with his terrorism history lesson, it was clear America got what it deserved on 9/11."

Of course, that's not what Clinton said at all. As the actual speech shows (and as ConWebWatch noted at the time), Clinton assigned no blame on the U.S. for 9/11; he also said "I support the efforts of President Bush, the national security team, and our allies in fighting the current terrorist threat" and that "no terrorist campaign has ever succeeded, and this one won't if you don't give it permission."

Even the Wall Street Journal's James Taranto defended Clinton, calling a Washington Times attack on the speech that took a NewsMax-like taken-out-of-context approach "unfair" and calling the speech incoherent ... but it's far from seditious."

Posted by Terry K. at 11:46 AM EDT
Thursday, June 23, 2005
Totally Manchurian
Topic: The ConWeb
Media Matters notes the following quote from Jay Severin about Hillary Clinton:

She's absolutely sociopathic. And she has a 50-50 chance of being the next president of the United States, save McCain. She's the Manchurian candidate.

But back in 2000, Paul Weyrich was running around claiming that McCain was the Manchurian candidate.

So, which one is it? We're confused. (Then again, maybe having two Manchurian candidates is part of the whole evil plan.)

Posted by Terry K. at 4:27 PM EDT
ConWeb Balance
Topic: CNSNews.com
Breakdown of a June 22 CNSNews.com article by Melanie Hunter on the House's passage of an anti-blag-burning constitutional amendment:

Total paragraphs: 10

Paragraphs containing pro-amendment statements: 8

Paragraphs containing anti-amendment statements: 1

Posted by Terry K. at 4:15 PM EDT
New Article: Money Over Facts
Topic: Newsmax
NewsMax doesn't want to tell you the truth about "The Truth About Hillary"; it's too busy trying to sell you the book. Read more.

Posted by Terry K. at 2:01 AM EDT
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
Well, He Would Know
Topic: WorldNetDaily
Jack Cashill has a new book out, "Hoodwinked:
How Intellectual Hucksters Have Hijacked American Culture
," published by Nelson Current (aka the former incarnation of WND Books). WorldNetDaily, not surprisingly, is promoting the book in the usual ways, including a 10-part series of excerpts.

From the WND promo ad-slash-"news" article:

For a century, reveals "Hoodwinked," so-called "progressive" writers and filmmakers – multiculturalists like [Ward] Churchill and Alex Haley, sexual revolutionaries like Kinsey and Margaret Mead, quasi-Marxists like Noam Chomsky and Michael Moore, and radical naturalists like Paul Ehrlich and Rachel Carson – have been using falsehood and fraud as primary weapons in their assault on traditional American culture.

Unlikely to appear as an example in Cashill's book is Cashill himself, though he has perpetrated his own share of hookdwinking. As ConWebWatch has documented, Cashill wrote a seven-part opus (what is it with Cashill and multi-part articles?) purportedly demonstrating that anti-abortion extremist James Kopp was innocent of killing abortion doctor Barnett Slepian -- a few months before Kopp confessed to killing Slepian.

Hoodwinked, indeed.

Posted by Terry K. at 3:57 PM EDT
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
Priorities
Topic: WorldNetDaily
Number of original WorldNetDaily "news" stories that mention the Downing Street Memo": 2

(A June 19 article attempting to debunk it, and a June 16 article on an online MSNBC poll noting that 94 percent of respondents agreed that President Bush misled the nation into war.)

Number of original WorldNetDaily "news" stories that mention the new TV ad for Carl's Jr. featuring Paris Hilton: 7

(The latest is a June 20 article on a parody ad; WND has made a point of noting that the ad is "blasted by some as soft-core pornography.")

Posted by Terry K. at 1:48 PM EDT
Scientology: Clinton's Fault
Topic: Accuracy in Media
Accuracy in Media has managed to come up with something else to blame on Bill Clinton: Scientology.

From a June 20 AIM column by Cliff Kincaid and Sherrie Gossett comparing the allged free pass given by the media to Tom Cruise's belief in Scientology to the media scrutiny given Mel Gibson's hardcore Catholicism in the wake of "The Passion of the Christ":

For years, Scientology fought a battle with the IRS because the government would not recognize its claim to be a religion. The IRS finally granted Scientology its desired status under President Bill Clinton, the recipient of massive donations from the Hollywood glitterati.

Posted by Terry K. at 12:13 PM EDT
Monday, June 20, 2005
New Article: The Post-Mortem on the Post-Mortem
Topic: The ConWeb
The ConWeb figures out how to go into attack mode on the Terri Schiavo autopsy report -- even bringing that "Nobel Prize nominee" doctor out of mothballs. Read more.

Posted by Terry K. at 1:42 AM EDT
Sunday, June 19, 2005
The Patty Murray Treatment, Part 2
Topic: Newsmax
Most bizarre spin on Richard Durbin's remarks (so far): A June 20 NewsMax column by John Perry claims that the remarks reveal a "sinister stain of anti-Semitism that Durbin's outburst made manifest" by allegedly "trivializing all those monstrous horrors" of the Holocaust:

When Durbin was saying what happened to Gitmo detainees was like what happened to those 11 million Nazi victims – more than half of them Jews – he was also, by definition, saying what happened during the Holocaust was no worse than what happened at Gitmo.

[...]

This was the worst sort of anti-Semitism. Lacking the candidness of an outright anti-Semitic slanderer, Durbin slithered around and used the rhetorical device of invidious comparison.

This long has been a part – alas, a growing part – of European culture, especially in France, where anti-Semitism thrives.

[...]

Every American of Jewish heritage – every American of non-Jewish heritage – should demand even more than an apology from Durbin. He should be told, "For shame, for shame, resign!"

Posted by Terry K. at 9:23 PM EDT
The Crisis Has Been Averted
Topic: WorldNetDaily
Ted Byfield's June 18 column for WorldNetDaily turns out to be not the one with the erroneous Barbara Walters statement. WND is thus spared from running yet another correction.

Posted by Terry K. at 8:40 PM EDT

Newer | Latest | Older

Bookmark and Share

Get the WorldNetDaily Lies sticker!

Find more neat stuff at the ConWebWatch store!

Buy through this Amazon link and support ConWebWatch!

Support This Site

« June 2005 »
S M T W T F S
1 2 3 4
5 6 7 8 9 10 11
12 13 14 15 16 17 18
19 20 21 22 23 24 25
26 27 28 29 30

Bloggers' Rights at EFF
Support Bloggers' Rights!

News Media Blog Network

Add to Google