Right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos has been a favorite at WorldNetDaily for his ability to piss off liberals. In July, for instance, then-WND writer Jerome Corsi devoted a lengthy article to Yiannopoulos in the wake of his permanent ban from Twitter, dutifully transcribing his thoughts on the election, “his antipathy for Clinton, the reasons he supports Trump and his vision for the future as Millennials emerge to reshape politics over the next few decades.”
Corsi gave Yiannopoulos ample space to promote himself, declaring that “Milo made clear to WND he had given considerable thought to constructing his political persona,” claiming that he “preferred to emulate what he understood was Madonna’s approach to her career” — “Madonna is not the best at anything, but she is above average with everything” — rather than “the star who is the best at what they do, better than anybody else on the planet. And they tend to be very damaged people, like Amy Winehouse, or whatever. They crash and burn very early. They have transcendent gifts, but with their genius goes the madness.” Corsi added that “Milo made clear he is preparing for a long and successful career.”
Well, not so much. After video surfaced of Yiannopoulos defending pedophilia — causing the revoking of an invitation to speak at conservative confab CPAC and the cancellation of his book deal — he’s looking more and more like a damaged person who has crashed and burned.
WND, however, tried to soft-pedal this news as much as possible. A Feb. 20 article by Cheryl Chumley on the Yiannopoulos video — apparently back at WND as a freelancer — was headlined “Media paint Milo as defender of pedophilia” (which got demoted to the subhead after her story was updated to reflect events). But the Yiannopoulos story was not driven by “the media” — the video was first touted on the Twitter account called the Reagan Batallion in reaction to his CPAC invite, not “the media” outside the conservative bubble. Even Chumley herself doesn’t blame “the media” in her article — the only non-conservative media figure she cites is CNN’s Jake Tapper — instead citing a “social-media backlash” against Yiannopoulos.
But Chumley did couch her words, claiming the video showed Yiannopoulos “supposedly defending pedophilia” and reprinted his “full Facebook rebuttal to all the fury.” She also embedded the “videos critics say show Milo Yiannopoulos ‘defending pedophilia'” (note the scare quotes around “defending pedophilia,” like WND insists on putting around “gay”).
WND would not have treated as well a liberal accused of the same offense.