Inside Info about NewsMax, the site behind the false Obama story

[scoobiedavis]

Anyone familiar with Christopher Ruddy and NewsMax shouldn't be surprised about the article on NewsMax's website that falsely claimed that Barack Obama attended a sermon in which Jeremiah Wright made inflammatory comments on July 22, 2008.

Those of you familiar with my work know that before I began focusing on Sun Myung Moon and Amway, most of my blogging was devoted to media analysis.

Before Christopher Ruddy founded NewsMax in 1998, he was part of a Scaife-funded media campaign to implicate the Clintons in the death of former White House counsel Vince Foster. Ruddy wrote slipshod articles for Scaife's Pittsburgh Tribune-Review about Foster's death; another Scaife operative, Joseph Farah (now with WorldNetDaily), ran Scaife-funded organization, The Western Journalism Center(WJC). that Farah portrayed WJC as a objective think tank but its primary goal was to give credence to Ruddy's laughable reporting on the Foster matter (just to show how bad Ruddy's reporting was, Ann Coulter referred to Ruddy's book on Foster a "conservative hoax book"). I have a post that summarizes this incestuous Scaife-funded media chain on my blog.

Since its founding in 1998, NewsMax has been a big source for smears against progressives--e.g., the notorious smear about Hillary and the Gold Star Mothers. The site ConWebWatch has a lot of good information on NewsMax.

BTW, yesterday I wrote a post on my personal site that deconstructs an appearance by a NewsMax operative on Fox News.

[Scurrilous]

1. Thanks for posting this.

:thumbsup:

[pscot]

2. Scaife, Ruddy, Newsmax

THanks for posting. It's a nasty job, but someone needs to do it.

[americanstranger]

3. Scooby!

Great to see you. thank you for this post - it's information that everyone here should read.

- as

[scoobiedavis]

5. Thanks but. . .

the nickname is "Scoobie" :)

[americanstranger]

6. Ack. Sorry.

Of course I know that. Forgive the typo.

- as

[Hawkeye-X]

12. well hello Scoobie!!!

Long time no see - I've seen your name elsewhere - but your post was right on the spot!

[theredpen]

4. K&R

[Hissyspit]

7. Read More Newsmax!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x5121737

It's loaded with lots of Vitamins B & S!

[Mz Pip]

8. Unfortunately the damage is done

Doesn't matter to some if the story is true or not. Opinions have been made and the MSM will give far more attention to the false accusations themselves than to correcting the false allegations.

We're going to go from "He was there." to "He might as well have been there."

How low can they go? It won't matter who our candidate is. They will be publishing falsehoods and then, if we're lucky, do an "OOPSIE!" a few days later. It's a sleazy way of keeping our candidates on the defensive, having to deny falsehoods instead of talking about issues. Then a correction will be printed on a website or on the bottom ofpage 15 where less than a quarter of those who heard the original smear can get the truth.

[scoobiedavis]

9. Progressive are better prepared now

You are correct in that a piece of false information can go through the GOP noise machine and progressives have been hapless in responding in previous years. Although the right still has an edge with the media, things are changing. First, we now have sites like Media Matters that are causing a lot of grief for the right's media operatives. The right still has a media edge but we're gaining--note, William's Kristol's retraction of the Obama claim in his New York Times article. Here's an article that gives more information about how progressives are gaining influence: http://mediamatters.org/columns/200803040004

[Froward69]

10. Once a neocon

tried to sign me up for newsmax because I needed to read "Real" news... as all others except Fox were biased.:eyes: :crazy: :eyes:

just more right wing propaganda as far as I am concerned.

[sudopod]

11. Newsmax? Those guys are nuttier than squirrel poop

I couldn't believe people were actually posting links to that nonsense.

We might as well start putting up links to Timecube in the LBN. If we're going to be kooks, we might as well be entertaining. :p

[Forkboy]

13. Kick

[Scurrilous]

14. Kick

:kick:

[NorthernSpy]

15. btw, do you remember something about Bill Clinton making friends with Scaife...

... before the old man died?

I'm sure that happened, or something like that. It was the old SOB in Pennsylvania.