Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily has studiously avoided reporting evidence that contradicts its preferred definition of "natural born citizen," which just so happens to exclude Barack Obama. Read more >>
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
NEW ARTICLE: Natural Born Misleaders
Topic: WorldNetDaily WorldNetDaily has studiously avoided reporting evidence that contradicts its preferred definition of "natural born citizen," which just so happens to exclude Barack Obama. Read more >>
Posted by Terry K.
at 12:06 AM EDT
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Tim Graham's Favorite British Newspaper
Topic: Media Research Center A May 8 NewsBusters post by Tim Graham cites not one but two articles in the British newspaper the Daily Mail. To which we ask: Why is Graham so into British newspapers? Perhaps because British papers have a little lower standard of accuracy than American papers do, and thus, are a convenient way for the American right to attack a Democratic president. This happened during the 1990s, when conservative British papers were used a way to legitimize attacks on Clinton, since they filtered from there into right-wing American papers. This phenomenon is happening all over again with the Obama adminstration, as Media Matters has documented. While Graham is not citing any Obama-bashing stories from his paper of choice, the Daily Mail, in his post -- his main goal is to take a whack at MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski -- the Mail has a decidedly checkered record of accuracy. It has promoted the idea that Obama has had brain surgery, pushed a discredited story about a purported Sarah Palin stalker, and touted birtherism. Most recently, it was duped into running what it claimed was a picture of the corpse of Osama bin Laden.Given that the main focus of the Daily Mail appears to be celebrity gossip -- it dominates the front page of its website -- it's no wonder that the standards are lower. Just because the British have low journalistic standards doesn't mean Americans must as well. Graham might do well to remember that.
Posted by Terry K.
at 9:12 PM EDT
WND Attacks Snopes for Acting Like WND
Topic: WorldNetDaily A May 8 WorldNetDaily article complains that "The online hoaxbusting website Snopes.com has changed its reference to the purported attending physician at Barack Obama's birth," deleting the name of Dr. Rodney T. West "as the physician at the birth" after the name of Dr. David Sinclair was revealed to be the actual doctor on Barack Obama's long-form birth certificate. As WND itself explained in a May 3 article by Bob Unruh, the apparent source for the claim about West was an article about a former Hawaii resident who recalled West referencing a baby born to a woman named Stanley but who did not say whether West was actually involved in Obama's birth. Still, WND complained that "There was no explanation at the Snopes site" regarding the change. However, that's the exact same way WND rolls. As we've noted, WND refused to issue a formal correction after columnist Jack Cashill got caught pushing the conspiracy theory that Obama was Photoshopped into a photo of his grandparents -- it simply deleted the egregiously wrong section of Cashill's column without notifying readers, followed by editor Joseph Farah throwing a petulant fit when Salon's Justin Elliott asked why he didn't issue a correction. In other words: Do as WND says, not as it does.
Posted by Terry K.
at 12:01 PM EDT
AIM Ignorantly Gloats Over Wash. Post Losing Money
Topic: Accuracy in Media In a May 9 Accuracy in Media blog post, Don Irvine has a grand time smacking around the Washington Post for losing money:
Irvine is careful not to mention the fact that of the major Washington newspapers, only the Post is subject to the whims of the marketplace. As we've documented, conservative newspapers have a long history of being nothing more than money-losing playthings of owners who can afford to lose millions upon millions of dollars every year in order to promulgate their right-wing agenda. The Washington Times, which has has been subsidized to the tune of billions of dollars since its inception nearly 30 years ago, was recently sold back to its original owner, a branch of Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church, for $1. The Washington Examiner, owned by billionaire Philip Anschutz, simply cannot be making money given the unhealthy market for newspapers and its mostly-free distribution model (being privately owned, it doesn't make its finances public). But even it gets touched with a budget squeeze every once in a while -- in an apparently economzing effort, its White House correspondent wasn't replaced with a new person; instead, two reporters on suburban beats will split White House coverage. Perhaps the reason Irvine is gloating over the Post losing money is because he knows his own preferred newspapers are not subject the same whims of the marketplace.
Posted by Terry K.
at 8:54 AM EDT
Newsmax's Hirsen: Obama As Obsessed With Image As Bin Laden
Topic: Newsmax James Hirsen serves up an awkwardly offensive transition in his May 9 Newsmax column:
Likening the president to the world's most notorious terrorist is hardly the kind of behavior that burnishes Newsmax's newly found reputation, according to Politico, as the voice of the heartland.
Posted by Terry K.
at 12:11 AM EDT
Monday, May 9, 2011
WND's Birthers Get Desperate
Topic: WorldNetDaily WorldNetDaily is desperately trying to keep up its birther campaign despite it being rendered obsolete by President Obama's release of his long-form birth certificate. This time, it's going all in on trying to prove that the certificate is a forgery. Unfortunately for WND, Jerome Corsi has chosen to rely on the expert analysis of such people as a private investigator who said he got involved for the potential "financial windfall" it would provide, as well as "an analysis posted on Facebook by GoodTryBarry." Surely these are credible people. Media Matters has more.
Posted by Terry K.
at 8:05 PM EDT
MRC's Anti-Soros Fund Drive Built Around Out-Of-Context Statement
Topic: Media Research Center
Prominently featured in the literature is this Soros quote: "The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States." This presumably is meant to portray Soros as someone who wants to destroy America -- indeed, a related MRC anti-Soros petition claims Soros has "anti-American plans in bringing our nation down." In fact, the quote, from Soros' 2006 book "The Age of Fallibility," specifically referred to criticism of the Bush administration, not to a desire to destroy the country:
But then, using the Soros quote in its proper context wouldn't scare as many potential donors out of their money, would it?
Posted by Terry K.
at 3:35 PM EDT
MRC's Lame "Profile in Bias" of Scott Pelley
Topic: Media Research Center When CBS officially named Scott Pelley as Couric's replacement, Geoffrey Dickens declared in a May 3 NewsBusters post that "A review of the MRC's archive reveals Pelley will most likely continue the long tradition of liberal bias advanced by his anchor predecessors Couric, Dan Rather and Walter Cronkite." The MRC's "Profile of Bias" of Pelley, however, could only come up with a dozen examples of "liberal bias" it deemed worth mentioning over nearly two decades of Pelley's work for CBS -- that's less than one example per year -- and several of those are strecthing things. For instance, the MRC baselessly treats Pelley's statement by Pelley that "There were many people in this country who felt that the Supreme Court stole that election for President Bush" as Pelley's personal belief about the case. Similarly, the MRC portrays Pelley's reporting on how President Clinton was, in the words of then-CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather, "singing his own praises" on the state of the economy as Pelley's own views. The MRC claims that Pelley wants to "Carve Bill Clinton into Mt. Rushmore" even though Pelley said no such thing. The MRC also claimed that Pelley "cover[ed] up for Bill Clinton" by declining to air footage of interviews conducted with "Arkansas state troopers who alleged that a then Governor Bill Clinton used them to procure women for adulterous affairs." In fact, given that the troopers were never able to prove those allegations when placed under deposition, that turned out to be smart journalism. As Joe Conason and Gene Lyons wrote in their book "The Hunting of the President," when the troopers were deposed by lawyers for Paula Jones, no two of them "appeared capable of agreeing about anything of substance in Jones v. Clinton":
Is the MRC still standing by these discredited troopers after all these years? It appears so. Dickens followed up in a May 5 NewsBusters post asserting that Pelley reacted "defensively" to the MRC's shabby list, claiming that he "seemed to deny the charge of liberal bias as he huffed: 'CBS has been called liberal for a lot of years,' adding, 'It probably harkens all the way back to Edward Murrow.'" Pelley seems to know the game the MRC is playing -- that it's the MRC's job to portray him as liberal, no matter how thin the evidence.
Posted by Terry K.
at 8:59 AM EDT
Prove It, WND
Topic: WorldNetDaily Following up on its thin-skinned attack on Think Progress for tweeting something snarky about its upcoming cruise, a May 1 WorldNetDaily article states:
But beyond an anecdote from "one North Carolina woman," WND offers no evidence that it has received "more signups than ever before" for this cruise, nor does it explain the criteria it used to determine this. Given that lack of evidence, we must assume that WND is making that up in order to portray the cruise as more popular that it is.
Posted by Terry K.
at 12:09 AM EDT
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Politico Cites ConWebWatch In Article On Newsmax
Topic: Newsmax A May 7 Politico article on Newsmax becoming, according to CEO Christoper Ruddy, "a voice of a Heartland populism that more established conservative publications do not understand" cites a ConWebWatch article describing the "very tough talk on Obama that has appeared" in the magazine version of Newsmax. Not only that, Politico notes an item we wrote for Media Matters describing how Newsmax has boosted the presidential ambitions of Donald Trump. As the chief chronicler of the right-wing web media, we're happy to have our reporting validated by what Newsmax hyperbolically describes in a front-page promo of the Politco article as "one of the most influential and widely read media outlets in the United States."
Posted by Terry K.
at 9:08 PM EDT
Obama Derangement Syndrome Watch, Larry Klayman Edition
Topic: WorldNetDaily
-- Larry Klayman, May 7 WorldNetDaily column
Posted by Terry K.
at 11:37 AM EDT
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Newsmax Using Trump Speech To Sell Its Magazine
Topic: Newsmax The close relationship between Donald Trump has reached the next level: Newsmax is using Trump to sell its magazine. The other day, Newsmax sent out an email that links to an offer to “Join Donald Trump in New Hampshire” for a “Special Online Event”: the webcast of a May 11 speech by Trump to a business expo in New Hampshire. Newsmax asserts, “Uncensored and uninterrupted, we're bringing this hard-hitting media goliath directly to you. Expect to hear BIG things from Donald Trump in this speech.” Then the hard sell begins:
But that’s not all! It wouldn’t be Newsmax if it weren’t trying to capitalize on the conservative talking heads it hangs out with -- Dick Morris, Sarah Palin -- to sell the various publications and financial products it offers, and so it is with Trump. For that very same $2.95, Newsmax will send you “two great bonuses” (emphasis in original):
Therein lies the usual opt-out caveat: One must unsubscribe from the magazine before the free offer ends in order to avoid being billed $39.95 for a full year’s subscription. Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy has said that “Trump realizes the great potential of Newsmax and has been using it very adroitly. We're well aware he's using it, happy he's using it." Now, Newsmax is using Trump in return. (Cross-posted at Media Matters.)
Posted by Terry K.
at 4:55 PM EDT
MRC's Graham Is Not Amused By Bestiality Jokes (Or Facts)
Topic: NewsBusters Tim Graham declares himself to be a bit humor-chllenged in a May 6 NewsBusters post:
Um, Tim? That's not where the humor is. It's about the -- forget it. Explaining a joke to someone so determined not to get it isn't worth the effort. Not only is Graham humor-impaired, he's fact-impaired as well. He goes on to write that "Thomas Francis of the Broward County-Palm Beach New Times argued that 'zoophiles' are NOT 'deviants.'" No, he didn't; he wrote an article quoting someone who said that. Graham is embracing the logical fallacy of assuming that a reporter agress with the opinions he reports. How can someone so willing to mislead be considered a legitimate media researcher?
Posted by Terry K.
at 1:57 AM EDT
Friday, May 6, 2011
CNS' Jeffrey Loves Zeros, Not Journalistic Standards
Topic: CNSNews.com Here is the bulk of Terry Jeffrey's May 5 CNSNews.com article:
There's no journalistic reason to substitute "trillion" for the series of zeroes Jeffrey chooses to use. That's a political judgment done solely to illustrate CNS' right-wing, anti-Obama agenda. And Lachlan Markay wonders why CNS gets pegged as "conservative activists" instead of journalists. (Hint: It's because that's what they are.)
Posted by Terry K.
at 1:53 PM EDT
Updated: Friday, May 6, 2011 1:54 PM EDT
WND Promotes 'Son of Hamas' As Shoebat Denounces Him
Topic: WorldNetDaily WorldNetDaily loves the heck out of Walid Shoebat, even though numerous questions have been raised about his self-proclaimed background as a purported Palestinian terrorist. WND also loves the heck out of Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of a Hamas leader who spied for Israel and converted to Christianity. WND has quoted him in stories and sells his book in its online store. WND recounted Yousef's story in offering his book for a special price in a May 4 article: It's almost too amazing to be true: A stranger hands a New Testament to a longtime Hamas insider and heir-apparent to the terror organization's power structure, he opens it up, reads it – and is changed forever: "I thought, 'Wow, this guy Jesus is really impressive! Everything He says is beautiful! … Every verse seemed to touch a deep wound in my life. It was a very simple message, but somehow it had the power to heal my soul and give me hope." While WND was publishing that, Yousef was being attacked by, of all people, Walid Shoebat. In a Pajamas Media article, Shoebat attacks Yousef as a "double agent":
As Richard Bartholomew notes, however, this may be litle more than professional jealousy: "Mosab is also a professional rival to Shoebat on the church pundit circuit: Shoebat bills himself as an expert on terrorism, based on the fact he once planted a bomb for the PLO in the 1970s – and even that is dubious. Mosab, in contrast, has real inside knowledge of Hamas, and he’s avoided the kind of extravagant pronouncements that make Shoebat look increasingly absurd." Shoebat also provides no original sources for the statements he's accusing Yousef of making. It seems that WND will have to choose at some point between Yousef and Shoebat. Either choice would not reflect well: Yousef's criticism runs counter to the right-wing Israelophilia WND espouses, and Shoebat has little to offer but hate and venom. That's more in line with WND sensibilities, but it does nothing for WND's credibility problems.
Posted by Terry K.
at 1:43 PM EDT
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