Back in January, WorldNetDaily proclaimed that it had submitted its reporting on the death of Miriam Carey, killed by law enforcement agents in 2013 after apparently attempting to crash the White House gates and then fleeing. In usual self-aggrandizing fashion, WND editor Joseph Farah is quoted as saying that “WND has already been cited by other news agencies for its determined leadership in rolling back the layers of an enormous and scandalous cover-up” (despite citing only one actual example of such, Mother Jones, which noted only that WND was obsessed with the story). Farah followed up with an even more self-aggrandizing column declaring that “If WND’s diligent commitment to this case resulted in a Pulitzer Prize or two, it would give the Miriam Carey case more prominence and exposure – the kind that could ultimately result in a measure of justice being served.”
Well, the Pulitzers were awarded last week, and WND’s entry did not win. We’re guessing it’s because its lead reporter on the story, Garth Kant, apparently did little more than file FOIA requests and has not proven that Carey’s death was the result of a conspiracy instead of being merely a tragedy involving a woman driving suspiciously and erratically in a nervous Washington, D.C., just two weeks after a shooter killed 12 people at D.C.’s Navy Yard. The facts that nobody believes WND , the Pulitzer bid is a desperate stab and acquiring some credibility, or that it’s Farah is clearly using the Carey story to continue his (largely failed) war on President Obama are probably irrelevant to the Pulitzer judges. The bitter headline of WND’s article on the awards says it all: “Major WND probe snubbed by Pulitzers.”
Speaking of bitter, Farah devoted a column to the Pulitzer snub, beginning with rehashing old glories and then whining that the “new media” didn’t win any Pulitzers:
Only Old Media news organizations were selected for the honors, even though the public long ago began getting its news from the New Media.
I’m only a little disappointed because what happened is just what I expected.
The old institutions die hard. The good old boys’ networks don’t usually open their doors unless you knock them down.
But I’m also more than a little disappointed that the Pulitzer insiders didn’t see the value of honoring our reporting on the Miriam Carey case. Their recognition would have done something much more significant than make my day. It would have made it nearly impossible for the official cover-up and stonewalling by the most powerful people in America over the death of Miriam Carey to continue.
Farah seems not to be aware that the Pulitzers have accepted nominations from online-only outlets since 2008, and that such outlets have, in fact, won Pulitzer Prizes, like ProPublica, InsideClimate News and the Huffington Post.
Of course, neither of those outlets have the lengthy history of presenting partisan and personal attacks as “news” that WND does.