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Very important open letter to WND readers
Managing Editor David Kupelian takes on XXX-rated press corps
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Posted: June 26, 2009
12:00 am Eastern
© 2009 WorldNetDaily
Dear WorldNetDaily reader,
Everyone reading this knows exactly why we elected the most left-wing president in history, even though a recent Gallup poll reveals conservatives are the largest ideological group in the nation.
It's because Barack Obama had an advantage no other presidential candidate has ever had – the total backing of the "mainstream media," which was so enchanted by the prospect of a young, eloquent, cool, liberal – and for the first time in history, black – president, that they essentially picked Obama up, held him high over head, and giddily raced together across the finish line.
Indeed, immediately after Election Day, when it no longer mattered, Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell publicly admitted the paper's reporters and editors had utterly neglected to vet either Obama, who "deserved tougher scrutiny," or Biden – an omission she referred to as "one gaping hole in [the Post's] coverage."
But the problem with journalism today is not just "gaping holes in coverage" and temporary abdication of professional journalism standards. Our "big media" have come increasingly to resemble the state-run press we see in China, with its gigantic Xinhua "News" Agency, in reality a mouthpiece for the Chinese Communist Party. Or maybe a more apt comparison would be with Russia, where although criticism of the government can be found in some newspapers and on the Internet, the country's national television channels are essentially extensions of the state: "They are all either controlled by the Kremlin or run by editors who know what not to say," says Allison Gill, director of the Human Rights Watch office in Russia.
How did the press arrive at such a sorry state?
(Letter continues below)
When I started in journalism in the early 1980s, the media behaved more-or-less professionally, but were biased leftward, as everyone knows. Then throughout the '90s the media experienced an influx of activists, especially feminists and gays, intent on advancing their agendas by covering those beats for their journalism organizations – very unprofessional. Most recently, the media have abandoned virtually all pretense of objectivity, with top national news personalities praising Barack Obama in the most embarrassing terms imaginable: Like MSNBC's "Hardball" host Chris Matthews comparing Obama to Jesus and saying the candidate's oratory gave him "this thrill going up my leg." Or Newsweek Editor Evan Thomas declaring, "… In a way, Obama's standing above the country, above – above the world, he's sort of God."
It gets even worse. Some nationally televised journalists have sunk to mocking, foul-mouthed on-air ridicule of traditional-minded, patriotic Americans.
For instance, though most of the establishment press ignored the coast-to-coast Tax Day "tea parties," two major cable news TV networks turned the occasion into a platform, not for reporting on opposition to the government's socialist policies, but for making on-air jokes about oral sex. In one 2 minute and 42 second report on the tea parties, MSNBC's David Shuster made a total of 23 sexual double-entendres. Not to be outdone, the same network's Rachel Maddow managed to pack 36 oral-sex references into a six minute and 54 second segment on the tea parties.
CNN superstar Anderson Cooper started off the tea party media mockery with his own dead-pan reference to the homosexual act – "It's hard to talk when you're tea-bagging," a term with which most Americans were heretofore unaware – while interviewing political consultant David Gergen.
Friends, can you imagine, during America's Revolutionary War days, the press covering the Boston Tea Party by mocking it and turning virtually every sentence into a sexual joke?
This bizarre mindset infects more than just a few cable news personalities. A rare look at a normally hidden face of the "mainstream press" was afforded by the 2008 celebrity roast of NBC's "Today" co-anchor Matt Lauer in New York City. With cameras and recording devices banned from the proceedings, news icons ranging from Lauer and "Today" colleagues Al Roker and Meredith Vieira to CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric to NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams to NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker competed with each other to see who could tell the grossest sexual jokes about each other to a crowd of 1,900. I cannot quote any of it here, but let the first sentence of the Village Voice's lengthy eyewitness report suffice: "Just got back from the Hilton in midtown after three hours of dick and pussy jokes from some of the biggest stars of TV and film."
Here's the problem: It's really, really hard to have a free country without a free press. But America's "big media" today – especially the national broadcast and cable TV news (except Fox), as well as the major trendsetting newspapers like the New York Times – have devolved into a de facto state propaganda ministry, whose members let off steam by mocking critics of the government with filthy, on-air jokes.
That's where WorldNetDaily comes in.
At WND, we don't mock patriotic Americans trying to set their country right. We don't rewrite White House press releases and call it news. We don't bow and scrape before President Obama or anyone else. We don't pretend abortion is OK, or that same-sex marriage is good, or that global warming is "proven science," or that more government is the solution to all problems, or that Palestinian leaders wants peace, or that the Constitution is old-fashioned, or that the "Federal Reserve" is good for America. In short, we're not politically correct and we have no sacred cows. Instead, we really do strive to tell the truth that Americans desperately need and deserve to hear.
Now, many of you read WND every day, you appreciate it, you trust it, you wouldn't want to be without it. For that we are endlessly grateful.
But what you might not realize is that what we do is very difficult. It isn't easy taking on the media elite, slaying the dragons of political correctness, bucking the tide of conventional wisdom, and constantly challenging tyranny, injustice and lies.
For example, currently WND is the only news organization in the world that is vigorously pursuing the Obama eligibility story. This is not without cost to us in terms of credibility, as many in the "mainstream media" (you know, the ones who compete to tell as many on-air dirty jokes as possible) attack us relentlessly as "birthers" and "conspiracy theorists." If you're not clued in on this story, I explain here exactly why I consider the Obama eligibility story to be deserving of serious press scrutiny.
My point is this: If you believe, as Thomas Jefferson did, that "the only security of all is in a free press," and if you want to see major growth in WND's kind of courageous, watchdog reporting – rather than the submissive, lapdog approach coming from what Rush Limbaugh calls today's "state-run media" – I'm asking you to consider becoming a WND "subscriber."
But wait, you say, I thought WND was free. Yes, it is free, and will remain that way. However, here's what I'm getting at:
Traditionally, newspapers have relied not only on advertising, but also on reader subscriptions for financial support. But in the Internet age, we find we can deliver the news to far more people by keeping the service free. Does that mean we have to lose the needed subscription revenue? Not necessarily.
It's a time-honored tradition in the newspaper business that free newspapers ask for voluntary subscriptions. As a rule, satisfied readers who depend on a free publication for their news don't mind paying a little bit for it.
That's why voluntary subscription donations have been the lifeblood of many "free" newspapers over the years – it's the honor system, you might say.
If you'd consider supporting WND with your "voluntary subscription," here are a couple of easy options:
Choose the amount you would like to donate for your voluntary monthly subscription payment and it will be deducted from your credit card on that same date each month. (Just call or e-mail WND if you ever want to cancel or change the amount.)
If you prefer, you can make a one-time voluntary subscription payment to WND.
You may also donate to WND's Legal Defense Fund, to help us battle the lawsuits and threats that always accompany honest journalism.
As yet another alternative, you may send a check to WorldNetDaily.com, P.O. Box 1627, Medford, OR 97501. (Be sure to mark your check "voluntary subscription payment" or "legal defense fund.")
Finally, if you prefer, you may donate by calling our toll-free order line: 1-800-4-WND-COM (1-800-496-3266).
Thank you very much. All of us at WorldNetDaily deeply appreciate your support. It's truly what enables us to keep going. And I think you'll agree, with what's going on in America today, we need a vibrant, free press more than ever.
Sincerely,
David Kupelian
Vice President and Managing Editor
P.S.: If you do use a credit card to make your contribution today, we'd like to say thanks by offering you three FREE issues of our popular monthly Whistleblower magazine. We can do this because we are confident you will want to purchase an annual subscription once you have an opportunity to sample this remarkable offline monthly companion to WorldNetDaily. That's a $22.50 value as our thank-you for a donation of any amount.
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Ed's had it all along, but he's too skeered to show it!
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