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Friday, February 22, 2008
Times Derangement Syndrome
Topic: Newsmax

A Feb. 22 column by Michael Reagan, pubished at Newsmax and FrontPageMag, takes a hysterical kill-the-messenger approach to the New York Times' John McCain story by lashing out at the Times.

Reagan refers to the paper as "the ultra-liberal — ahh, let's say it outright — the Marxist New York Times" and "this virulently anti-American house organ for every enemy of the United States," cited its editors' "corrupt way of thinking," claimed the McCain story was "waiting in Times Editor Bill Keller's bottom drawer, where presumably he also keeps the cross he burns in front of his former Roman Catholic church and his holy Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez relics," and asserted, "Who needs the Times, especially since we already have al Jazeera?"

Reagan ends with one final dose of bile:

Time after time, The New York Times has shown itself to be the Typhoid Mary of American journalism, and as such should be quarantined to prevent its viruses from further infecting our body politic and endangering both our national security and the safety of the American people.

Nowhere does Reagan offer any evidence that what the Times reported about McCain is incorrect.


Posted by Terry K. at 3:01 PM EST
Farah's Double Standard
Topic: WorldNetDaily


In his Feb. 22 column claiming a double standard in how Larry Sinclair's unverified claims against Barack Obama are getting short shrift against the New York Times' legally vetted, multipily (if anonymously) sourced claims against John McCain, Joseph Farah writes of his creation of WorldNetDaily: "I believed it was time for a real media alternative – one that not only had professional journalism standards, but applied them evenly without fear or favoritism."

What are these "professional journalism standards" he speaks of? Didn't Farah and WND just settle a libel lawsuit by admitting they published false statements about someone, after having previously admitted in court papers that the reporting in which those false statements were made was never fact-checked prior to publication? There was certainly no application of "professional journalism standards" there.

Farah himself, meanwhile, is a documented plagiarizer and spreader of false claims. No "professional journalism standards" there, either.

And it's rather curious that Farah is pointing out that the McCain is being "accused by unnamed sources" in the Times, when WND itself has regularly used anonymous sources, including support for the claims WND had to retract as a result of the libel lawsuit.

If WND actually had "professional journalism standards," wouldn't it have tried to verify the accuracy of Sinclair's claims about Obama -- which it has not indicated it his done -- before publishing them? The fact that it apparently hasn't, while demanding verification of the charges against McCain and taking McCain's denial at face value, demonstrates that he is, in fact, showing "favortism" despite claiming that he is "an independent journalist who supports neither Obama nor McCain."

Farah went on to claim: "In fact, I can promise you WND would report both stories regardless of whether I supported either candidate." But WND has done no original coverage of the McCain story, other than an attack on it by Rush Limbaugh.

Apparently Farah has learned nothing from having to admit just a week ago that his website engaged in libelous behavior.


Posted by Terry K. at 1:32 PM EST
Meanwhile ...
Topic: Accuracy in Media

Media Matters busts assertions by Accuracy in Media's Cliff Kincaid in a Feb. 12 column that a Senate bill sponsored by Barack Obama to fight global poverty "would commit the U.S. to spending 0.7 percent of gross national product on foreign aid." In fact, the bill imposes no spending requirement or tax. Kincaid's false claims have been repeated by Rush Limbaugh and WorldNetDaily.


Posted by Terry K. at 12:46 PM EST
WND Anti-Gay Agenda Watch
Topic: WorldNetDaily

A Feb. 20 WorldNetDaily article by Bob Unruh repeats numerous unsupported claims regarding laws about gays and education that is essentially one huge invocation of the Depiction-Equals-Approval Fallacy.

Unruh highlighted "Massachusetts father" David Parker, who accused teachers of "indoctrinating his 5-year-old son in the homosexual lifestyle." Parker has been in a dispute with Massachusetts schools that began according to Unruh, "in the spring of 2005 when the Parkers then-5-year-old son brought home a book to be shared with his parents titled, "Who's in a Family?" The optional reading material, which came in a 'Diversity Book Bag,' depicted at least two households led by homosexual partners." Parker has been a cause celebre ever since, highly sympathetic to his side and denigrating or ignoring entirely any contrary view.

(Columnist Kevin McCullough even claimed in a June 2006 WND column that "10 ... thug-kins" who were "recruited ... to participate in angry anti-Parker demonstrations outside the school" allegedly "grabbed David Parker's 7-year-old son, dragged him behind the corner of the school, well out of sight from school officials, and proceeded to punch him in the groin, stomach and chest, before he dropped to the ground when they then kicked and stomped on him." in fact, the fight was with one other child, not 10, it was over who got to sit where in the cafeteria, and the school district noted that "following the incident the boys were observed arm in arm at school and subsequently the child who was hit went to the house of the child who hit him for a play date.")

Unruh devotes pretty much the entire article to Parker's anti-gay attacks. They never explain how a book that states the simple fact that there is such a thing as homosexual couples equals "indoctrinati[on] ... in the homosexual lifestyle," yet Unruh repeatedly quotes Parker using the word,i.e., "Teachers are being postured to have a constitutional right to coercively indoctrinate little children."

Of course, it wouldn't be an Unruh article if he didn't deliberately distort that California law on gays and schools, and he doesn't disappoint. This time around, he falsely describes the law as "requiring indoctrination that not only is pro-homosexual, but also affirms bisexuality, transsexuality and other alternative lifestyle choices," offering no evidence that this is, in fact, the case.

Indeed, Unruh gives Parker a free pass, permitting no one to respond to his claims, even his Godwin's Law-like assertion (something Unruh is quite familiar with) that "if homosexuality and bisexuality can be taught by public school teachers to children as young as age 5, there is virtually no topic, up to and including Nazism, that educational precedents would not allow to be taught to young children." 


Posted by Terry K. at 12:52 AM EST
Updated: Friday, February 22, 2008 1:01 AM EST
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Newsmax's Anonymous-Sources Double Standard
Topic: Newsmax

A Feb. 21 Newsmax article by Phil Brennan bashed the New York Times article on John McCain, in part because "the Times called upon anonymous sources who seemed eager to spread their suspicions, as long as their names go unmentioned." Brennan also bashed the Times' "squad of anonymous informants" who "all but openly accuse[d] this American hero of adultery and favoritism toward the lobbyist with no proof.

Brennan might want to have a little chat with his coworker Ronald Kessler. In a Feb. 7 Newsmax article, Kessler used anonymous sources to attack Hillary Clinton and depict her as "two-faced and perpetually angry." Kessler's "squad of anonymous informants" can be just as easily described as "eager to spread their suspicions, as long as their names go unmentioned."

Why does Brennan give Kessler a pass for using anonymous sources while the Times gets bashed for doing the exact same thing? Sounds like the Clinton Exception at work.


Posted by Terry K. at 10:29 PM EST
Updated: Friday, February 22, 2008 1:11 AM EST
Meanwhile ...
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Richard Bartholomew notes that WorldNetDaily is now selling trinkets containing dirt from Jerusalem's Temple Mount. Of WND's claim that it "was able to salvage a very small amount of soil from the Temple Mount slated to be disposed by the Waqf, the holy site's Islamic custodians," Bartholomew adds: "One imagines Aaron Klein stuffing his trousers with the brown gold while interviewing local Islamists, or some such scene." Klein, of course, is WND's notoriously biased Jerusalem correspondent.

WND concludes its sales pitch by exhorting, "Show your love for Jerusalem's holiest site. Purchase a Temple Mount solidarity necklace containing earthy soil from the Mount and pray for the peace of Jerusalem. Act quickly as supplies are extremely limited."

"Earthy soil"? Is there any other kind?


Posted by Terry K. at 3:16 PM EST
MRC's 'Old News' Double Standard
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center has gone on the attack against the New York Times article on John McCain:

  • An MRC press release dismissed it as a "nearly decade-old 'news' story" that "contains nothing new and nothing newsworthy." MRC chief Brent Bozell further bashed it as "[a] ten-year old piece of gossip."
  • In a TimesWatch item and NewsBusters post, Clay Waters similarly dismissed it as "old news" because "the Times waltzed down memory lane to recap the Keating Five savings and loan scandal."
  • A CNSNews.com article by Susan Jones, headlined "NY Times Begins Its Campaign Against GOP Frontrunner," stated that the Times "even dredged up the Keating Five scandal of the late 1980s."

Of course, when it comes to alleged scandals among Democrats, there is no such thing as "old news" at the MRC. For instance, Ted Kennedy's 40-year-old Chappaquiddick scandal was most recently referenced by the MRC in October 2007, just four months ago. In 2003, Bozell made a point of noting that Robert Byrd "civil rights in the '60s and, as is often noted, briefly joined the Ku Klux Klan" -- events occurring as far back as 60 years ago. And, of course, no Clinton scandal is ever "old news," as Bozell's recent book demonstrated. And the MRC's Tim Graham bashed the New York Times last December because it didn't rehash old Clinton scandals.

UPDATE: MRC now has an action alert urging readers to complain to the Times about the McCain article because it "dredg[ed] up 8 year-old allegations."

UPDATE 2: CNS has a second article on the Times' McCain story that carries the headline "Innuendo: McCain Forced to Defend Himself." Somehow, we suspect that CNS has never used the headline: "Innuendo: Clinton Forced to Defend Himself."


Posted by Terry K. at 11:49 AM EST
Updated: Thursday, February 21, 2008 5:40 PM EST
WND Sleaze Watch
Topic: WorldNetDaily

At the bottom of a Feb. 19 article that regurgitates an Accuracy in Media item on the alleged commie-pinko past of a mentor to Barack Obama, WorldNetDaily added: "Obama's campaign also, for the third straight day, declined to respond to WND requests for comment on the report of a Minnesota man who alleges he shared cocaine with Obama when Obama was a state lawmaker in Illinois."

As we've noted, WND has offered no evidence whatsoever to support the man's claim and has ignored evidence that the man may not be telling the truth. Shouldn't it prove the man's claim is true first before making demands that Obama respond to it? 

The funny thing is that WND repeated Cliff Kincaid's statement in his AIM hit piece on Obama: "Let's challenge the liberal media to report on this. Will they have the honesty and integrity to do so?" Let's turn that around: Does WND have the honesty and integrity to do actual reporting on Obama beyond regurgitating whatever sleaze comes its way?

Unfortunately, WND's history tells us the answer is no. 


Posted by Terry K. at 9:32 AM EST
Newsmax Ignores That McCain Defender Is On McCain Payroll
Topic: Newsmax

Newsmax has officially fallen into Republican lockstep in support John McCain for president.

"The liberal New York Times is wasting no time in smearing John McCain, the Republican Party nominee for President," Newsmax declared in a Feb. 20 article, expressing alarm about a new Times article that "suggested the Arizona Senator has been engaged in an illicit relationship" with a "female lobbyist." By contrast, according to Newsmax:

Noted Democratic attorney Robert Bennett appeared on Fox News Wednesday night and called the Times report nothing more than a "real hit job."

Bennett, brother of conservative pundit Bill Bennett, had served as private counsel to President Bill Clinton in the 1990s during the Paula Jones scandal.

[...]

A Senate Ethic Committee probe found that McCain was only guilty of “poor judgment” in the affair. Bennett noted that he served as the Democratic counsel to the committee investigating the five U.S. Senators. Bennett said he concluded that McCain was an "an honest man."

He added that Times report was "shameless" and slammed the paper for publishing the story, which he described as "entirely unsourced."

Newsmax failed to note one thing: Bennett is on McCain's payroll, hired in December specifically to address allegations about his relationship with the lobbyist. 


Posted by Terry K. at 1:16 AM EST
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
New Article -- WorldNetDaily: Officially Discredited
Topic: WorldNetDaily
WND has admitted that it published false claims about a businessman who supported Al Gore in order to settle a libel lawsuit. Will its history of recklessly putting its political agenda before sound journalism -- which the libel settlement hasn't stopped -- eventually kill Joseph Farah's baby? Read more >>

Posted by Terry K. at 1:44 PM EST
The WND Whitewash Continues
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Oh, what a surprise: A Feb. 20 WorldNetDaily article on Peter Paul's accusations against the Clintons yet again downplays Paul's criminal history -- as WND is wont to do fore anyone willing to conform to WND's political agenda and bash the Clintons. The only reference is a brief, buried to reference to Paul's "past felony convictions"; no reference, of course, to his current felony conviction.


Posted by Terry K. at 10:42 AM EST
NewsBusters Equivocates on Abortion Violence
Topic: NewsBusters

A Feb. 20 NewsBusters post by Dave Pierre rants against an Associated Press article noting that "researchers say domestic extremists who commit violence in the name of their cause -- abortion or the environment, for example -- account for most of the damage from such incidents in this country," claiming it's an attack on pro-lifers -- even though that line is the only reference to abortion in the entire article.

Pierre first asserts that since 9/11, "pro-lifers have committed a grand total of zero murders, attempted murders, and bombings directed at abortion workers and clinics across the United States and Canada." A commenter on the post, meanwhile, notes an arson at an abortion clinic in New Mexico last December; Wikipedia lists several post-9/11 attacks on clinics. Pierre then cites the anti-abortion activist group Life Dynamics -- best known for engaging in a sting operation by calling abortion clinics impersonating a 13-year-old impregnated by an adult man and then seeing if the clinics would report the purported statutory rape to authorities, not to mention peddling false claims that abortion providers illicitly traffic in the sale of fetal tissue -- who claims that "in the years 1993 and 1994, the worst period of violence in pro-life history in which five abortionists and clinic workers were killed, more farmers and twice as many hairdressers were murdered on the job."

Are those farmers and hairdressers somehow more human or more dead? Nice bit of equivocation there, guy.


Posted by Terry K. at 9:59 AM EST
Updated: Wednesday, February 20, 2008 10:15 AM EST
Rewarding Good Journalistic Behavior
Topic: CNSNews.com

Evan Moore was less than happy with our critique of his CNSNews.com article on "The Vagina Monologues," using his personal blog to bash us ("flaming lib") and even our choice of webspace providers. He does appear to concede, though, that our concerns are valid, insisting that he had written what we complained wasn't in the article -- actual evidence that the play "degrades women," not merely assertions by conservative activists -- was edited out by higher-ups. Of course, we judge an article not by what wasn't printed, only by what was.

So, in the interest of promoting good journalistic behavior -- which is what we hope to accomplish by doing what we do; we think our critiques hold up even outside of political considerations -- let us praise Moore for an article that includes proper balance. In a Feb. 19 article, Moore led with assertions from conservatives that the Democratic-led Congress is obstructing the judicial nomination process, then counters by pointing out that President Bush has fallen behind on nominating judges and that more judges have been confirmed when Congress was controlled by Democrats than it was by Republicans.

That's what we like to see, and what readers have a right to expect from a news organization: the full story being told. We operate on a simple principle here -- that the ConWeb should be held no less accountable for its journalism than the MSM. If Moore cares about journalism, he should have no problem with that.


Posted by Terry K. at 12:58 AM EST
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Actually, Elder Bush Did Bash Clinton
Topic: Newsmax

In a Feb. 19 Newsmax article bashing the idea of a Hillary Clinton presidency as a de facto third term for Bill Clinton, James Humes writes:

True, George H.W. Bush made private fundraising appearances for his son in 2000. But never once did he personally criticize John McCain, Al Gore, or John Kerry. For that matter, he never made any public statements that expressed opposition to his successor’s (Bill Clinton's) policies.

In fact, the elder Bush repeatedly criticized Clinton administration policies while Clinton was in office.

Humes also writes that Bill Clinton called Barack Obama "another Jesse Jackson," putting that phrase in quotes. We could find no instance in which Clinton used the phrase "another Jesse Jackson" to describe Obama. What Humes is presumably referring to is Clinton's noting, after Obama won the South Carolina primary, that Jackson won it as well when he ran for president, but Clinton never specifically called Obama "another Jesse Jackson," as Humes claims.

Humes is described as "professor at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs" (as well as a "former White House speechwriter"). Shouldn't a college professor have researched his article better than this?


Posted by Terry K. at 3:43 PM EST
Clinton Derangement Syndrome Watch
Topic: Newsmax

It is indeed wonderful to smell the stench of death around Hillary’s campaign: the infighting, the leaks, the firings, the resignations, the money troubles, the media speculation.

[...]

No gloating over the demise of the Clintons until and unless she has withdrawn from the race. A long way from now. But that day may be coming.

-- John LeBoutillier, Feb. 14 Newsmax column 

Shrillary is anything but likable – and her voice sounds like a rusty nail scraping a blackboard. I won't comment on her looks – except to say most people are sick to death of seeing her. Period. End of story.

-- Joseph Farah, Feb. 14 WorldNetDaily column 

Hillary looks like a robot — like a Stepford Wife. Her latest stand-up stance — with the microphone in one hand and her other arm stretched out like a minister giving a blessing — is yet another phony stance.

-- John LeBoutillier, Feb. 19 Newsmax column


Posted by Terry K. at 2:27 PM EST

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