Far-right fundamentalist news and shopping site WorldNetDaily combines sensationalistic reactionary stories with a glut of self-promotional product pitches and questionable advertisements masked as headlines and text links to produce a formula that attracts a substantial readership within the right-wing echo chamber.
Unfortunately, the twisted news judgment of WorldNetDaily makes TheHuffingtonPost look alomost like a legitimate news source, and the predominance of commercial content makes WND one of the most cynical and mercenery sites on the web.
No other news site does so much to embed ads into the news. As of 4:00pm, six of the first ten “headlines” at today’s WND aren’t news stories; they’re actually ads promoting products and services. These include:
An anti-global warming theory DVD for $29.95—just in case all the other free anti-global warming hocus pocus at WND didn’t satisfy your thirst for irrational propaganda. Publisher Joseph Farah insists that global warming can’t possibly be real because God promised Noah He’d never flood the earth again; why, then, do you need to pay thirty bucks to hear some hack say the same thing?
A full years’ worth of Advanced Artery Solution for just $239.40. This medical “breakthrough” (it’s actually just ethylenediamine tetra-acetic acid, a common chemical used in thousands of products) promises that you’ll feel the difference as your arteries are cleansed of plaque (as if anyone can “feel” their arteries) and toxins leave your body (that you can feel—it’s called urinating.)
An anti-Darwin “documentary” that “proves” that Darwinism “has probably been responsible for more bloodshed than anything else in the history of humanity” (including the Holocaust) for just $4.95. ‘Nuff said.
A year’s subscription toWND’s own Whistleblower magazine for only $49.95. The next edition is devoted to “The secret life” of Barack “Hussein” Obama, “a Manchurian candidate – harboring an ominous secret agenda” who “reflexively, instinctively, will side with what’s wrong and harmful for America, and will oppose what’s right and good and wholesome for America. It’s uncanny.”
Other phony “headlines” include these ridiculous get rich quick schemes:
Turn $200 into $1.2 million with these hidden stocks! Get the 4 stocks you need to own in 2008.
$187,296 in 24 hours! Spare me just 7 minutes to show you how to copy my plan.
As if this shameless schilling isn’t bad enough, WorldNetDaily embeds literally hundreds of text links that look like normal hyperlinks in its news stories. In fact, these links are part of a third-party network called Kontera that promises ads “relevant” to the content. The ads, however, are only relevant insofar as any word in the English language that’s relevant to any Kontera ad can be hyperlinked. For example, when the word “doctor” appears in one WND story, Kontera embeds a link to an ad for health insurance. When the words “medical care” appear in the same story, an ad for Geico car insurance pops up.
Now on to the news.
The lead story this afternoon is tabloid-style sensationalism headlined, “Children’s hospital launches sex change for kids program.” It begins,
A doctor at the renowned Children’s Hospital Boston has launched a new program to drug children to delay puberty so they can decide whether they want a male or a female body … “We don’t think that demonic is too strong a word to describe this,” said a statement from the pro-family Mass Resistance organization. “It brings us thoughts of the Nazi doctors who thought they were doing good things.”
In reality, the “new program”—the Gender Management Service Clinic at Boston Children’s Hospital—is intended primarily to help children born with Disorders of Sexual Differentiation, which are pathologies that make it difficult to tell whether the children are male or female. Delaying puberty in such cases allows doctors to better handle the difficult decisions involved in assigning a gender to such children. (Note: the link above on the word “puberty” takes you to www.DealTime.com, where you can ”Shop Deals from 1000s of Merchants. Find, compare & buy.” How’s that for relevant?)
Another WND story proclaims that “Clinton’s family home reflects Democrat divide” and begins,
A new front has opened in the battle for the deeply divided soul of America’s Democrats – the front porch of the long-time family home of Hillary Clinton’s father and grandparents (where) a “Hillary For President” poster is tied to one half of the fence while an “Obama For President” adorns the other half.
The implication is that the Clinton family is divided over whom to vote for. In reality, though, the Clinton’s don’t own the home and haven’t for many years; a mother and daughter live there now, one of whom supports Clinton and the other Obama.
If all of this sensationalism, sex, spin and snake oil salesmanship isn’t enough for you, some of the nation’s best political minds offer their commentary at WND, including Chuck Norris and Pat Boone. Then there’s this laughable series of smears on Barack ”Hussein” Obama that Newsprism documented earlier this year.
Newsprism “follow(s) news and politics with a big shovel.”
In the case of the massive pile of bull called WorldNetDaily, we needed a steamshovel.
