The Washington Times et al.

The Washington Times' connection with Sung Myun Moon.

I have been told by a good friend, whom I respect very deeply, that he finds the Washington Times a better source of news than the Washington Post; this is in line with his marked preference for the Wall Street Journal over the New York Times. Whatever your social-political orientation, it's undeniable the WP, the WSJ, and the NYT are all absolutely essential institutions in US journalism - but I have serious doubts about the Washington Times. (The CJR gives the Times about the most honest appraisal I've been able to locate.)

If you read the articles linked in the previous post, you discovered a curious link between the Washington Times and Sung Myun Moon. The relationship is even murkier, however: while Moon does not sit on the board of News World Communications, Inc., (which publishes the Times) every member of the board is a member of Moon's Unification Church; Moon is acknowledged as the newspaper's founder and claims to have invested over $1 billion in keeping the paper going since 1982.

I have to wonder how the conservative Christians who make a up a large portion of the Washington Times' readership would respond to Moon's claims that he is the Messiah. And this new lens on the Times makes it even more interesting to consider Insight in the News, which claims to be the "sister publication of the Washington Times" in the same way as "Newsweek is the sister publication of the Washington Post." A quick scan (just now) of the headlines from Insight's website suffices:

"John Kerry Picks Radical Socialist for Religious Outreach"
"Anti-Bush 9/11 Commission Caught Faking Conclusions"
"Southern Baptists Leave Alliance to Avoid Gays"
"Border Patrolmen Furious That New Uniforms Are Made in Mexico"
"Democrats Ignored Al-Sadr Defeat as U.S. Troops Smashed Militia"
"Powell: Iraqis Must Kill Own Insurgents for Order to Be Restored"
"New Evidence of the Link Between Iraq and Al-Qaeda"

And maybe the most distrurbing of all:
"Grade Schools Become Hotbed for Child Rape"
("Clinton era values that encouraged oral sex among middle schoolers have started trickling down to the grade schools as rape.")

I don't suppose I'll be giving up the WP or the NYT or the CSM or the Economist anytime soon - nor, more importantly, the power of the internet to enable critical consumption of news. Thank goodness for that! Otherwise, I'd probably be dependent on the high-quality work of publications like the Washington Times and Insight magazine!