PlagiarismMax NewsMax once again (twice again, actually) can't tell the difference between a press release and real news. By Terry Krepel Posted 5/30/2000 Maybe they were anticipating the long Memorial Day weekend a little too much. Maybe they're firmly in the pocket of their benefactors. Maybe they're just lazy. Whatever the reason, NewsMax has seen fit to publish nearly verbatim two more Judicial Watch press releases under a NewsMax byline. That brings the total to at least three. ConWebWatch has already noted the first one. The latest offenses occurred within five days of each other (Judicial Watch's Larry Klayman is a very busy man, with at least 58 lawsuits pending against the Clinton administration). The first was May 22 regarding Donato Dalrymple's $100 million lawsuit against Attorney General Janet Reno and two other officials. The NewsMax story includes virtually all the text of the press release, adding a paragraph about a press conference that came from, yes, another Judicial Watch press release. The second occurred on May 26 regarding a ruling in Judicial Watch's lawsuit over FBI files. The White House had appealed a ruling by Klayman's favorite judge, Royce Lamberth, that President Clinton violated the privacy of Kathleen Willey, who has accused Clinton of sexual misconduct, by publicly releasing letters she had written to him. The only significant difference between the NewsMax story and the press release is that NewsMax breaks up some of the longer paragraphs. The only other reference to this story on NewsMax was a link to an news article on Yahoo that has since disappeared. Interestingly enough, WorldNetDaily pulled a similar tactic, posting a since-departed link on the story from Fox News. In its place is a commentary from Klayman that is basically a puff piece on Lamberth. (Sucking up to the judge? Isn't that akin to bribery?) So the only record of this story on these two "news" sites will be biased, one-sided accounts. What will get missed by those who dare to rely on these sites for information is the fact that although the appeals court turned down the White House appeal, it criticized Lamberth's ruling as "gratuitous" and "superfluous." This will show up nowhere on NewsMax, while Klayman touches on it in his WorldNetDaily commentary as an example of what a wonderful guy Lamberth is and what evil liberals the appeals court judges are. Again: These are not truthful, comprehensive accounts that will end up in the archives of NewsMax and WorldNetDaily, since neither site archives its links to outside news sources. Anyone relying on these sites for factual information about this story -- which is likely, considering the overall anti-Clinton nature of both of these sites that would attract both the Clinton-hater and those who study them -- are going to be deceived. WorldNetDaily's Joseph Farah considers his site to be "the next great journalistic institution." The bias, sloth and unfairness that NewsMax and WorldNetDaily demonstrate here make this kind of "institution" one most of us can do without.		Send this page to: The latest from

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