Twice in December, we caught CNSNews.com apparently stealing story ideas from WorldNetDaily. The creeping WND-ization of CNS and its Media Research Center parent is continuing apace.
In a Feb. 8 article, Leo Hohmann wrote about how “A recently retired U.S. State Department veteran has published a whistleblower letter in the Chicago Tribune fingering the refugee resettlement program as fraught with ‘fraud’ and “abuses.'” Hohmann made no apparent effort to verify that the letter writer, Mary Doetsch, was who she said she was or that anything she wrote was true; instead, he crows that Doetsch’s letter “affirms two-and-a-half years of reporting by WND, which has reported that the ‘vetting’ of refugees from broken countries such as Somalia, Syria and Sudan often consists largely of a personal interview with the refugee.”
The next day, CNS’ Andrew Eicher wrote about the same letter. Like Hohmann, Eicher also apparently failed to make an effort to verify Doetsch’s identity or claims.
Of course, the possibility exists that CNS stole its idea from Fox News, where Doetsch’s letter was reported on the same day Eicher’s article came out.
Still, CNS is getting beat to the punch by WND. We don’t mean that as a complement.