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Western Journalism Center - Joseph Farah
The Western Journalism Center, (WSJ) is a project of Joseph Farah, former
publisher of the ultra-conservative Sacramento Union-once owned
by Scaife.47 The Carthage Foundation,
controlled by Scaife, is one of the largest funders of the WSJ.
Founded in 1991, for several years the major product of WJC was a small
newsletter, Dispatches, once billed as "From the front lines
of the culture war." According to Lieberman, Farah has assembled for
the Western Journalism Center:
a high-profile board of advisers to help
with fund-raising, including such conservative luminaries as Sally
Pipes, president of the Pacific Research Institute, Marvin Olasky,
a professor of journalism at the University of Texas, and Arianna Huffington.
Both Olasky and Huffington are senior fellows at Newt Gingrich's Progress & Freedom
Foundation.48
Scaife also funds the Pacific Research Institute and GOPAC49
The Center placed some 50 ads reprinting Ruddy's Tribune-Review stories
in the Washington Times, then repackaged the articles as a packet
titled "The Ruddy Investigation," which sold for $12. Farah also
bought full page ads publicizing Christopher Ruddy's allegations that appeared
in papers including The New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, and Los
Angeles Times. The ad campaign brought in over $500,000, half from
individual donors-many of whom bought Foster conspiracy materials-and half
from foundations, including $100,000 from Carthage.
WJC circulated a video featuring Ruddy's claims, "Unanswered-The
Death of Vincent Foster," that was produced by ultra-conservative
James Davidson, chairman of the National Taxpayers Union (NTU) and co-editor
of the Strategic Investment newsletter.
NTU's research arm receives funds from Scaife. Davidson is a large financial
contributor to Farah's Western Journalism Center, which gave its first "Courage
in Journalism Awards" to Ruddy, reporter David Brock of the Scaife-funded American
Spectator, and ABC correspondent John Stossel, whose reports often
repackage themes from conservative and libertarian think tanks.50
In 1997 Farah started a daily Internet newspaper WorldNetDaily.com, which
featured anti-Clinton stories. Farah In a 3-page interview in the John
Birch Society's magazine The New American, Farah claimed that by
March 1998 the website was receiving 20,000 to 30,000 hits per day. In
the April 17, 1998 issue of Dispatches, Farah claimed 150,000 hits
per day. That issue carried a lead story rife with anticommunist red-baiting
aimed at Barbara Lee, an African-American elected to Congress from California.
She is described as filling the seat of retiring "Ron `Red' Dellums." Christopher
Ruddy is listed as a Contributing Editor. Previous | TOC | Print | Next |
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