WorldNetDaily dropped a potentially libelous bomb in the form of a March 7 column by Art Robinson — the anti-global warming activist and failed congressional candidate perhaps best known for a homeschooling curriculum featuring the outdated racist attitudes of a 19th-century author — accusing Oregon State University instructors and administrators of “political payback” in the form of allegedly throwing three of his children out of graduate school.
Robinson offers not a shred of substantiation for these claims, nor did WND make any apparent attempt to allow the school to respond to the charges before publishing them. That cavalier approach to journalism potentially opens WND up to libel charges — something it should be quite familiar with.
Finally, more than 20 hours after publishing Robinson’s screed, WND has permitted Oregon State to respond in an article by Art Moore — who quotes only four sentences from a much longer statement by the school and devotes much of the rest to rehashing Robinson’s unsubstantiated claims.
That sort of kneejerk response is typical of WND’s so-called journalism. After all, it similarly ran to Robinson’s defense when questions were raised about the racist author in his homeschool curriculum, and with similar deflections without actually addressing the charges with anything resembling substance.