tessimal

One of our college students posted this to our group list:

Posted: November 18, 2002
1:00 a.m. Eastern

By Art Moore
© 2002 WorldNetDaily.com

A public school superintendent has sent police in squad cars to the
houses of homeschooling families to deliver his demand that they
appear for a "pre-trial hearing" to prove they are in compliance
with the law.

http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=29685

Norma

Fetteroll

on 11/18/02 4:30 PM, tessimal at tessimal@... wrote:

> One of our college students posted this to our group list:
>
> Posted: November 18, 2002
> 1:00 a.m. Eastern
>
> By Art Moore
> © 2002 WorldNetDaily.com
>
> A public school superintendent has sent police in squad cars to the
> houses of homeschooling families to deliver his demand that they
> appear for a "pre-trial hearing" to prove they are in compliance
> with the law.
>
> http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=29685
>
> Norma

Though this didn't even raise a ripple here, I just posted this on another
list and thought it might be useful here since this is the second scary
article about threats to homeschooling I've seen from WorldNetDaily. And I
suspect, considering where this leads, that it won't be the last scary story
they publish.

If you go to About World Net Daily

http://WorldNetDaily.com/resources/about_WND.asp

you find:

> WorldNetDaily.com is a fiercely independent newssite committed to hard-hitting
> investigative reporting of government waste, fraud and abuse.
>
> Founded by Joseph and Elizabeth Farah in May 1997 as an Internet project of
> the non-profit Western Journalism Center, WorldNetDaily.com, Inc. began
> operating as a for-profit corporation Oct. 1, 1999. Now a leading Internet
> news site in both traffic and influence, WorldNetDaily.com has broken some of
> the biggest, most significant and most notable investigative and enterprising
> stories in recent years:

and

> WorldNetDaily.com's editorial policy reflects the old-fashioned notion that
> the principal role of the free press in a free society is to serve as a
> watchdog on government -- to expose corruption, fraud, waste and abuse
> wherever and whenever it is found.

Which makes it sound pretty good.

But if you Google Joseph Farah and the Western Journalism Center, you'll
find the Western Journalism Center was founded by Joseph Farah and James H.
Smith, the former publisher of the Sacramento Union.

and under the WJC FAQs it says:

> 2.) Is the WJC conservative, liberal or what?
>
> We subscribe to neither, nor are we the captive of any political party. We
> pursue the traditional newspaper objective:  We are a "watchdog" on
> government.

And yet, if you go to:

> http://www.publiceye.org/conspire/clinton/Clintonculwar8-06.htm

The Western Journalism Center, (WSJ) is a project of Joseph Farah, former
publisher of the ultra-conservative Sacramento Union-once owned by Scaife.
The Carthage Foundation, controlled by Scaife, is one of the largest funders
of the WSJ.

And Scaife, from some reports in the Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/stories/scaife
050299.htm

> Funding Father of Right
> Part One: May 2, 1999
> Richard Mellon Scaife, the Pittsburgh billionaire who has financed numerous
> anti-Clinton activities, helped fund the creation of the modern conservative
> movement in America. By compiling a computerized record of nearly all his
> contributions over four decades, The Washington Post found that Scaife and his
> family's charitable entities played a central role in the rise of the right,
> giving at least $340 million to conservative causes and institutions.

Yeah. WorldNetDaily may not be "captive of any political party" but they've
got directors and big bucks tied to a *huge* conservative agenda.

If you go to Conservative Web Watch

http://conwebwatch.tripod.com/stories/primer.html

There are 3 people profiled: L. Brent Bozell, Joseph Farah, and Christopher
Ruddy.

It's funny how the WorldNetDaily says it:

> currently attracts nearly 2 million unique visitors a month and
> more than 40 million pageviews, according to its own internal monitoring
> software.

But if you go to Nielsen/Netratings (the TV program rankers who kept track
of the most watched TV shows now keep track of the most visited websites to
advise advertisers where to spend their ad dollars) they some how seem to
have missed how busy WorldNetDaily is:

Parent Unique Audience Reach % Time per Person
1. Microsoft 41,524,313 50.72 0: 25: 12
2. AOL Time Warner 38,241,288 46.71 0: 16: 18
3. Yahoo! 35,724,321 43.64 0: 37: 01
4. Google 12,736,004 15.56 0: 08: 05
5. eBay 10,768,651 13.15 0: 49: 01
6. Terra Lycos 9,357,696 11.43 0: 09: 31
7. Amazon 8,692,944 10.62 0: 10: 11
8. About-Primedia 7,958,194 9.72 0: 08: 41
9. United States Government 7,593,804 9.28 0: 09: 11
10. AT&T 6,413,435 7.83 0: 12: 59
11. Viacom International 6,368,127 7.78 0: 17: 56
12. Walt Disney Internet Group 5,713,947 6.98 0: 10: 16
13. USA Interactive 5,181,707 6.33 0: 13: 43
14. eUniverse 4,763,166 5.82 0: 06: 51
15. Excite Network 4,520,254 5.52 0: 32: 31
16. Classmates 4,392,133 5.36 0: 06: 41
17. CNET Networks 4,133,012 5.05 0: 07: 46
18. Sharman Networks 3,943,996 4.82 0: 08: 52
19. Landmark Communications 3,666,971 4.48 0: 05: 18
20. EarthLink 3,538,568 4.32 0: 10: 37
21. Electronic Arts 3,532,643 4.31 1: 13: 17
22. InfoSpace Network 3,427,251 4.19 0: 07: 43
23. NFL Internet Network 3,165,693 3.87 0: 14: 03
24. United Online 3,104,625 3.79 0: 07: 10
25. Ask Jeeves 2,944,900 3.60 0: 06: 24

And that's just what I uncovered within half an hour of casual searching.

Joyce