Sean will be discussing the matter with Tierney tonight (27 Jan 03) on his televison show. I’m looking forward to it.

I have noticed many of the news articles you link to are from newsmax I have never heard of newsmax and after reading some of the website it seems like a conservative propaganda machine. If the articles they are reporting are real/true news are other news agencies running any of these stories? If they are could you provide a link.

Having noticed long ago that Newsmax is, shall we say, less than objective in its reporting, I do try to find second sources for the stories it reports. The sad fact is, though, that most of the time Newsmax simply takes on stories and newsmakers that other outlets fail to reach. For instance, as we head to war you would think it would be obvious for any news outlet to try and get in touch with people like Dr. Khidir Hamza, who was once Saddam’s chief nuclear scientist and is now living in the US. But, though he hasn’t been discredited in any piece I’ve seen, only Newsmax interviews him. Why? Newsmax was also among the first to take Mansour Ijax seriously—he’s the man who claims to have offered up bin Laden to the Clinton administration years ago, but was rebuffed. He has since been vindicated, in spite of the best efforts of many former Clinton officials and journalists to discredit him. Additionally, Newsmax is often a handy source of quotes generated by the big radio talk shows. So that’s basically why I use it.

One thought, though, that I think makes Newsmax in some ways superior to other, more “reputable” outlets: It doesn’t pretend to be anything that it isn’t. It’s biased toward the right, and is proud of that fact. Take the NY Times as its opposite, obviously biased to the left, but tries to hide the fact of its bias. I’ll take the honest bias of Newmax over the dishonest bias of the Times in many circumstances.

That should be “Mansour Ijaz” in the comment above. I never claimed to be a great typist.