The financial situation at WorldNetDaily must be bad — managing editor David Kupelian has joined his titular (if not functioning) boss, Joseph Farah, in doing a money beg. In a letter sent to WND’s mailing list on Feb. 25 and twice more since then, Kupelian praised the exposing of alleged “scandalous – even treasonous – misuses of your hard-earned tax dollars during the Biden-Harris administration,” adding:
But now, please take a breath and then check out this almost equally crazy use of your tax dollars, which most Americans have just recently learned about.
That would be the federal government’s generous financial support for “mainstream media” outlets (that’s code for the Deep State’s servile propaganda organs). I’m talking about big news companies from Politico to the Associated Press to the New York Times and many others. (USASpending.gov, the government-spending tracker, reveals Politico received up to $27 million – some counts indicate $32 million – from different federal agencies during Joe Biden’s term in office.)
In these times of high inflation and great economic stress, I’m sure you’re not too thrilled to know that your hard-earned dollars went to keeping these notoriously leftist/establishment “journalism” outfits – which Trump correctly labels “Fake News” – alive and thriving.
In fact, this “financial support” involved paying for subscriptions from those media outlets, not any sort of subsidy. Kupelian then fluffed his own operation:
But hey, what about the few news organizations that are NOT craven propagandists for the leftist, globalist, “woke,” pro-transgender, anti-Christian, global-warming, Deep State wacko crowd?
What about the small handful of journalism enterprises that dare to actually be guided by TRUTH, common sense, the Constitution, the Bible, an appreciation for the hard-won lessons of history and an actual love of America? For such organizations as these, rest assured, no help has ever been received from the American taxpayer. And that would include WorldNetDaily.
In fact, not only do we not receive federal subsidies funded by your tax dollars, we wouldn’t want that.
WND is guided by a lot of things — conspiracy theories and homophobia being chief among them — but “truth” is definitely one of those things (just ask Clark Jones). It can also be argued that for-profit WND creating a nonprofit to offload the financing of its “news” coverage constitutes taxpayer assistance. Kupelian then tried to help his employer play victim:
Indeed, as a result of Big Tech persecution of WND, three major international online ad companies – TripleLift, AppNexus/Xander and Teads – all canceled WND advertising, seriously hurting our revenues. Why? Well you see, because of our supposed “hate speech” – that’s what they call it when you uphold basic biblical morality. The Southern Poverty Law Center, the hateful leftwing extremist group that Big Tech relies on to identify hateful extremist groups, classifies WND as … you guessed it, a hateful “extremist group”! Apparently, your favorite news site engages in, and I quote, “manipulative fear-mongering and outright fabrications designed to further the paranoid, gay-hating, conspiratorial and apocalyptic visions … from the fringes of the far-right and fundamentalist worlds.”
Translation: We’re conservative and Christian.
Note that Kupelian does not dispute the accuracy of what the SPLC said — he simply tries to lazily redefine its words. Then comes the money beg:
It is only the grace of God and the generosity of donors that has gotten us this far. Thank you very much for all of your past support.
But we need your continued help to keep going, to cover our costs and make payroll for our fantastic group of journalists, all of whom have endured significant pay cuts and missed paychecks entirely, yet who have stayed with us for the past two-plus decades!
If those WND “journalists” are staying there despite erratic paychecks, that seems more like evidence of mental illness rather than dedication. And if these “journalists” are so “fantastic,” why do we keep catching falsehoods in their reporting?