A letter to Joseph Farah re: libel lawsuit

The following letter was e-mailed to WorldNetDaily's Joseph Farah on March 8:

Dear Mr. Farah:

I see that you have recently given increased attention to the libel lawsuit filed against WorldNetDaily by Clark Jones, a supporter of and fundraiser for Al Gore during the 2000 presidential campaign, over a series of articles published by WND. In soliciting donations for WND's legal defense fund, you have regularly claimed in regard to this lawsuit: "Understand that this lawsuit would be dropped in a flat second if Al Gore wanted it to be dropped. Understand also that WND did nothing wrong and libeled no one in the publication of this exhaustive series."

However, you have yet to offer any evidence to support either of those statements.

So, in the interest of journalistic honesty, fairness and transparency -- ideas I would hope that you, as a professional journalist, believe in -- I am challenging you to do two simple things:

-- Publish all court documents related to Jones' libel lawsuit on the WorldNetDaily website. That means all documents by both parties, not just the ones that make Jones and Gore look bad and WND look good. That way, in the spirit of true, open-source journalism, WND's readers can judge for themselves whether "WND did nothing wrong and libeled no one."

-- Disclose the names of donors to WND's legal defense fund and their donation amounts, as well as the overall financial status of the fund. Your readers deserve to know whether WND is being bankrolled as a Gore smear machine -- a logicial assumption given WND's historically one-sided, negative coverage of Gore -- and one way to do that is to make the legal defense fund as transparent as possible.

WorldNetDaily's explanation of its mission concludes with you saying, "the world has a right to know." WND's readers have a right to know whether that statement applies to WorldNetDaily itself.

Sincerely,

Terry Krepel
Editor, ConWebWatch

Have something to say about ConWebWatch?
Write to conwebwatch@gmail.com