Anonymously Yours, WorldNutDaily

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In 1999, WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah criticized the use of anonymous sources -- as done in a profile several years earlier by the Columbia Journalism Review on Farah's tenure as editor of the Sacramento Union -- as "usually quotes made up out of whole cloth to help make the story read better."

Such an attitude has never prevented Farah from banning anonymous sources at WND. In fact, they're not only used in much the same manner he criticized a decade ago, their use has expanded -- even granting anonymity to terrorists.

WND's penchant for anonymity goes way back -- for instance, a 2002 article featured an anonymous "former White House veterinarian" asserting that the Clintons didn't treat their pets very well while in office. The election of Barack Obama to the presidency, however, has resulted in an explosion of anonymous claims being hurled in WND articles:

* An April 18 article promoting Farah's G2 Bulletin, "the premium, online intelligence newsletter edited by the founder of WND," asserted that Obama employed "restrictive rules of engagement that actually hampered the rescue of Capt. Richard Phillips and extended the drama at sea for days." The article cited anonymous yet purportedly "reliable military sources close to the scene" to back up the claim, which is otherwise unsubstantiated.
* A July 30 article by Joe Kovacs touted an anonymous YouTube video claiming that the Bible depicts Obama as the Antichrist. Kovacs even interviewed the video-maker, claiming that he "spoke to WND under condition of anonymity out of concern for members of his local church." Kovacs didn't explain why, if the person's scholarship was solid (which, as ConWebWatch detailed, it wasn't), he had anything to fear from "his local church."
* A July 29 article touted a video -- like the Antichrist video, anonymously posted on YouTube -- purporting to demonstrate "how easy it is to fake" a Hawaiian certificate of live birth, like the one Obama has presented. But the video contains a major factual error, claiming that "there's not even a hint of a (raised) seal" on the certificate released by the Obama campaign. In fact, it contains a raised seal. WND made no mention of this error.
* When WND promoted a document claimed to be a "Kenyan birth certificate" for Obama, it it stated that Orly Taitz, the birther attorney who WND has long been fawning over despite increasing concerns about her legal work, "told WND that the document came from an anonymous source who doesn't want his name known because 'he's afraid for his life.'" WND made no apparent effort to find the source of the certificate, even after it concluded that it was a forgery.
* An Aug. 9 WND article promoted a story in the Globe supermarket tabloid "proclaiming Barack Obama's 'official birth document' a fake and suggesting the president may actually have been born in Canada." The article added that the Globe "also cites WND's reporting about the changing stories about the hospital in which Obama was born." According to WND, the Globe cited "reports by unnamed document analysts" for its claim. That would seem to make WND's reporting on par with that of supermarket tabloids. Most legitimate news organizations would be embarrassed by such a comparison; WND apparently is not. (Indeed, as ConWebWatch has detailed, the ConWeb denounces the tabloids when they report on Republicans but embrace them when they report on Democrats.)

Another way WND hurls smears without accountability is by quoting anonymous commenters who are purported to have written to WND. For instance, in an Aug. 5 article dedicated to spreading the falsehood that a White House email address set up to collect reports of misinformation being spread about President Obama's health-care reform plan is a "snitch" program that collects data on people, Bob Unruh included the following:

Bloggers and readers were livid.

Wrote one observer to WND, "In my life I never thought I’d see this happen in America. What are they going to do with the information they get?? Pure terrorism."

Added another, "Why wait for a snitch to turn your name in, when you do it yourself and save them the trouble. It only makes sense."

A third reader simply sent a link to an online history resource that cited the use of informants during the prelude to World War II.

Unruh offered no explanation as to why these particular responses were chosen, or why they were granted anonymity. After all -- as former newspaper editor Farah should very well know -- newspapers do not publish anonymous letters to the editor. Nor does WND explain why anonymous comments, a lower grade of commentary because no one is accountable for it, should be given a privileged place in a bylined "news" story.

http://conwebwatch.tripod.com/stories/2009/wndanonymous.html

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