Joseph Farah was in a fearmongering mood (but when isn’t he, really?) in his Jan. 28 WorldNetDaily column:
First, it was the act of using the term “China virus” that was effectively banned by Joe Biden.
Now that appears to be only the beginning.
What does Biden’s press shop have in store? Throwing out of the White House briefing room every member of the MAGA media – a virtual war on the likes of Sean Spicer, host of a Newsmax show, Eric Bolling, host of Sinclair’s “America This Week,” One America News, the Daily Caller, Breitbart and WND.
Bolling, who interviewed President Trump seven times and occasionally attended press briefing, is worried that he may lose his credential. He has submitted an application to the White House Correspondents’ Association to try to prevent his banishment.
“I hope to hold this administration as accountable as the media held the Trump administration,” Bolling said.
Well, it turns out that Bolling had more immediate concerns. ON the same day Farah’s column came out, he was fired by Sinclair for pushing too many coronavirus lies and conspiracy theories, including that vaccines didn’t work.
Farah then moved on to burnishing WND’s once-existent reputation as a news organization that once had a reporter at the White House:
As for WND, one of the very first online news companies, it was a long hard fight to get a hard pass to cover the U.S. Senate. After an initial denial, it took 19 months, two appeals, a massive letter-writing campaign by loyal readers, calls from members of Congress and the threat of a lawsuit, before WND finally got its Senate press credentials. The victory came on 3-2 vote Jan. 29, 2003.
I doubt very much WND would be approved today for a hard pass to cover the White House – in a time of censorship, cancel culture and since the war declared on President Trump declared him to be persona non grata.
Farah conveniently omits the fact that WND hasn’t had a regular reporter at the White House for years, since Les Kinsolving — who was rightly seen as a wildly biased joke by the rest of the White House press corps — held the job (and he died in 2018).
Farah then complained that “At the White House, the new Biden staffers have imposed a new standard that may exclude more reporters than made the cut in the Trump years” quoting a press office official saying that “We expect reporters covering the White House to operate in good faith and tell their audience the truth, and this White House will do the same.. … Organizations or individuals who traffic in conspiracy theories, propaganda and lies to spread disinformation will not be tolerated.”
Trafficking in conspiracy theories, propaganda and lies to spread disinformation? That describes WND to a T, and it’s why WND would likely not be approved for a White House press pass today. No wonder Farah’s worried — never mind that WND hasn’t sent a reporter to the White House in years and likely won’t be anytime soon given the continuing precarious state of its finances.
Farah concluded by serving up false bravado and Trump nostalgia: “WND, for its part, has been around for 24 years. We expect to survive whatever is coming from the Biden administration, as bad it might be. We look forward to being here for the next act of a real president, Donald Trump – it will be true renaissance.”