I hope WND learned its lesson form all this and will more closely check out its sources in the future. You cannot just publish alleged criminal activity just because some unnamed source claims it, unless you are willing to give the the source of the accusations or have documented proof of the criminal activity. The standard should even be higher for a Christian publisher.I have seen many stories on Internet sites that just publish whatever they want against people as if it were true without any supporting facts offered.
I cannot imagine the cost to WND in fighting and settling this case. At least you still have a business after all this. I think that was in doubt until this settlement. I hope others on the Internet will learn from this.
“Discovery has revealed to WorldNetDaily.com that no witness verifies the
truth of what the witnesses are reported by authors to have stated.
Additionally, no document has been discovered that provides any verification
that the statements written were true.
“Factual discovery in the litigation and response from Freedom of Information
Act requests to law enforcement agencies confirm Clark Jones’ assertion that his
name has never been on law enforcement computers, that he has not been the
subject of any criminal investigation nor has he interfered with any
investigation as stated in the articles. Discovery has also revealed that the
sources named in the publications have stated under oath that statements
attributed to them in the articles were either not made by them, were misquoted
by the authors, were misconstrued, or the statements were taken out of
context. |
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Thanks for that link it clears up some things. The story is not very flattering to WND.
Read more about the lawsuit here. Of not is WND’s admission that it never fact-checked the articles before printing them — the articles were originally written under the sponsorship of the Center for Public Integrity, which backed out of the project and let the authors peddle it to whomever would print it.