| America's Newspaper | |
.svg) | |
 Front page for August 22, 2016 | |
| Type | Daily newspaper |
|---|---|
| Format | Broadsheet |
| Owner(s) | Operations Holdings (via The Washington Times, LLC) |
| Founder(s) | Sun Myung Moon |
| Publisher | Larry Beasley |
| Editor-in-chief | Christopher Dolan |
| General manager | David Dadisman[1] |
| News editor | Victor Morton |
| Managing editor, design | Cathy Gainor |
| Opinion editor | Charles Hurt |
| Sports editor | David Eldridge |
| Founded | May 17, 1982; 42 years ago (1982-05-17) |
| Political alignment | Conservative |
| Language | English |
| Headquarters | 3600New York Avenue NE Washington, D.C., U.S. |
| City | Washington, D.C., U.S. |
| Country | United States |
| Circulation | 52,059 daily (as of 2019)[2] |
| ISSN | 0732-8494 |
| OCLC number | 8472624 |
| Website | www |
The Washington Times is an Americanconservative daily newspaper published inWashington, D.C. It covers general interest topics with an emphasis onnational politics. Itsbroadsheet daily edition is distributed throughout Washington, D.C. and the greaterWashington metropolitan area, including suburbanMaryland andNorthern Virginia. It also publishes a subscription-based weeklytabloid edition aimed at a national audience.[3]
The first edition ofThe Washington Times was published on May 17, 1982. The newspaper was founded byUnification Church leaderSun Myung Moon, and it was owned until 2010 byNews World Communications, an international mediaconglomerate founded by Moon. It is currently owned by Operations Holdings, which is a part of the Unification Church movement.[4]
The Washington Times has been known for its conservative political stance, often supporting the policies ofRepublican presidentsRonald Reagan,George H. W. Bush,George W. Bush, andDonald Trump.[5][6] During the 1990s and 2000s,The Washington Times published stories supportingneo-confederate historical revisionism. It also drew controversy by publishingconspiracy theories and racist columns by a former editor about U.S. presidentBarack Obama.The Washington Times has published columns contradictingscientific consensus on multiple environmental and health issues.
The Washington Times was founded May 17, 1982, byNews World Communications, aNew York City-based international mediaconglomerate associated with theUnification Church, which also ownsUnited Press International (UPI) and newspapers inJapan,South America, andSouth Korea.[7]
Bo Hi Pak, chief aide to Unification Church founder and leaderSun Myung Moon, was the founding president and founding chairman of the board.[8] Moon askedRichard L. Rubenstein, arabbi and college professor who had written on theHolocaust, to serve on the board of directors.[9] The newspaper's first editor and publisher wasJames R. Whelan.[10]
The Washington Times was founded one year afterThe Washington Star, aWashington, D.C. daily newspaper, went out of business, leaving the city withThe Washington Post as its only daily newspaper. A large percentage of the newspaper's news staff came from theStar.
Unusual among daily newspapers whenThe Washington Times was founded, the newspaper published full color front pages in all its sections and color elements throughout. It also used ink that it advertised as being less likely to come off on the reader's hands than the type used byThe Washington Post.[11] At its start, it had 125 reporters, 25 percent of whom were members of theUnification Church of the United States.[12]
PresidentRonald Reagan readThe Washington Times every day during his presidency.[13] In 1997, he said: "The American people know the truth. You, my friends atThe Washington Times, have told it to them. It wasn't always the popular thing to do. But you were a loud and powerful voice. Like me, you arrived in Washington at the beginning of the most momentous decade of the century. Together, we rolled up our sleeves and got to work. And—oh, yes—we won theCold War."[14]
After a brief editorship underSmith Hempstone,Arnaud de Borchgrave, a former UPI andNewsweek reporter, became executive editor, serving from 1985 to 1991.[15] Borchgrave was credited with encouraging energetic reporting by staff but was known to make unorthodox journalistic decisions. During his tenure,The Washington Times mounted a fundraising drive forContra rebels inNicaragua and offered rewards for information leading to the arrest ofNazi war criminals.[16][17]
From 1985 to 2008, News World published a weeklynews magazine calledInsight on the News, also called justInsight, as a companion toThe Washington Times.Insight's reporting sometimes resulted in journalistic controversy.[18][19][20][21]
In 1991, Moon said he had spent between $900 million and $1 billion onThe Washington Times.[22] By 2002, Moon had spent between $1.7 billion and $2 billion, according to different estimates.[23][24]
Wesley Pruden, previously a correspondent and then amanaging editor ofThe Washington Times, was named executive editor in 1991.[25] During his editorship, the paper took a stronglyconservative andnativist editorial stance.[26]
In 1992,North Korean leaderKim Il Sung gave his first and only interview with the Western news media toThe Washington Times reporterJosette Sheeran, who later became executive director of theUnited Nations World Food Programme.[27]
In 1992,The Washington Times had one-eighth the circulation ofThe Washington Post (100,000 compared to 800,000) and two-thirds of its subscribers subscribed to both papers.[28] In 1994, it introduced a weekly national edition, which was published in atabloid format and distributed nationally.[29] U.S. PresidentGeorge H. W. Bush encouraged the political influence ofThe Washington Times and other Unification Church movement activism in support ofAmerican foreign policy.[5]
In 1997, theWashington Report on Middle East Affairs, which is critical of U.S. andIsraeli policies, praisedThe Washington Times and its sister publication,The Middle East Times, for what it called their objective and informative coverage ofIslam and theMiddle East, while criticizingThe Washington Times for its generally pro-Israel editorial positions. TheReport suggested that these newspapers andThe Christian Science Monitor, each owned by religious institutions, were less influenced by pro-Israel pressure groups than corporate-owned newspapers.[30]
In 2002, at an event held to celebrateThe Washington Times' 20th anniversary, Moon said, "The Washington Times is responsible to let the American people know about God" and "The Washington Times will become the instrument in spreading the truth about God to the world."[23]
In 2004,David Ignatius, a correspondent forThe Washington Post, reported thatChung Hwan Kwak, a leader in the Unification Church, wantedThe Washington Times to "support international organizations such as theUnited Nations and to campaign for world peace and interfaith understanding." This, Ignatius wrote, created difficulties for Pruden and some ofThe Washington Times' columnists. Ignatius also mentioned the Unification Church movement's reconciliatory attitude towardsNorth Korea, which at the time included joint business ventures, and Kwak's advocacy for greater understanding between the U.S. and theIslamic world as issues of contention. Ignatius predicted that conservatives in Congress and theGeorge W. Bush administration would support Pruden's position over Kwak's.[31]
In 2006, Moon's son,Hyun Jin Moon, president and CEO of News World Communications, dismissed managing editor Francis "Fran" Coombs following accusations of racist editorializing. Coombs had made some racist andsexist comments, for which he was sued by other employees atThe Washington Times.[32][33]
In January 2008, Pruden retired, andJohn F. Solomon, who worked with theAssociated Press and had most recently been head ofinvestigative reporting and mixed media development atThe Washington Post, was appointed executive editor.[34][35][36]
A month later,The Washington Times changed some of itsstyle guide to conform more to what was becoming mainstream media usage. It announced that it would no longer use words like "illegal aliens" and "homosexual" and, in most cases, opt for "more neutral terminology" like "illegal immigrants" and "gay", respectively. It also decided to stop using "Hillary" when referring to then U.S. SenatorHillary Clinton, and the word "marriage" in the expression "gay marriage" would no longer appear inquotes in the newspaper. These policy changes drew criticism from some conservatives.[37]Prospect magazine attributedThe Washington Times' apparent political moderation to differences of opinion over the United Nations and North Korea, and wrote, "TheRepublican right may be losing its most devoted media ally."[38]
In November 2009,The New York Times reported thatThe Washington Times would no longer be receiving funds from the Unification Church movement and might have to cease publication or become anonline publication only.[39] Later that year, it dismissed 40 percent of its 370 employees and stopped its subscription service, instead distributing the paper free in some areas of theWashington metropolitan area, includingfederal government departments and agencies. However, a subscription website owned by the paper, theconservatives.com, and theTimes' three-hourradio program,America's Morning News, both continued.[40] The paper also announced that it would cease publication of its Sunday edition, along with other changes, partly in order to end its reliance on subsidies from the Unification Church.[41]
On December 31, 2009,The Washington Times announced that it would no longer be a full-service newspaper, eliminating its metropolitan news and sports sections.[42][43]
In July 2010, the Unification Church issued a letter protesting the directionThe Washington Times was taking and urging closer ties with it.[44] In August 2010, a deal was made to sell it to a group more closely related to the movement. Editor-in-chiefSam Dealey said that this was a welcome development among theTimes' staff.[45]
In November 2010, Moon and a group of former editors purchasedThe Washington Times from News World Communications for $1. This ended a conflict within the Moon family that had been threatening to shut down the paper completely.[46] In June 2011, Ed Kelley, formerly ofThe Oklahoman, was hired as editor overseeing both news and opinion content.[47][48]
In March 2011,The Washington Times announced that some former staffers would be rehired and that the paper would bring back its sports, metro, and life sections.[49]
In 2012, Douglas D. M. Joo stepped down as senior executive, president, and chairman.[50]Times presidentTom McDevitt took his place as chairman, and Larry Beasley was hired as the company's new president andchief executive officer.[51]
In March 2013,The Washington Times partnered withHerring Networks to create a new conservative cable news channel,One America News Network (OAN), which began broadcasting in mid‑2013.[52]
In July 2013,The Washington Times hiredDavid Keene, former president of theNational Rifle Association and chairman of theAmerican Conservative Union, to serve as its opinion editor.[53]
In September 2013, Solomon returned as editor and vice president of content and business development.[54][55] Solomon's tenure was marked by a focus on profitability.[56]
In September 2015, the newspaper had its first profitable month, ending a streak of monthly financial losses over the paper's first 33 years.[57][58] In December 2015, Solomon left forCirca News.
The Washington Times opinion editorCharles Hurt was one of Trump's earliest supporters in Washington, D.C.[59]During the2016 presidential election,The Washington Times did not endorse a presidential candidate, but it endorsed Trump for reelection in the2020 presidential election.[60]
In 2020, during theCOVID-19 pandemic,The Washington Times received between $1 million and $2 million infederal-backed small business loans fromCitibank as related of thePaycheck Protection Program. The Washington Times which it said helped retain of its 91 employees.[61][62] During the2024 presidential election,The Washington Times endorsed Trump for election.[63]
In the 1980s, reporters forThe Washington Times visited imprisoned thenSouth African activistNelson Mandela, who wrote about the newspaper in his autobiography,Long Walk to Freedom. He said, "They seemed less intent on finding out my views than on proving that I was a Communist and a terrorist. All of their questions were slanted in that direction, and when I reiterated that I was neither a Communist nor a terrorist, they attempted to show that I was not a Christian either by asserting that the ReverendMartin Luther King never resorted to violence."[64][65]
The Washington Times holds aconservative political stance.[66][67][68][69] In 1995, theColumbia Journalism Review wrote thatThe Washington Times "is like no major city daily in America in the way that it wears its political heart on its sleeve. No major paper in America would dare be so partisan."[25] In 2002,The Washington Post reported that the newspaper "was established by Moon tocombat communism and be a conservative alternative to what Moon perceived as theliberal leanings ofThe Washington Post. Since then, the paper has fought to prove its editorial independence, trying to demonstrate that it is neither a "Moonie paper" nor a booster of the political right but rather a fair and balanced reporter of the news."[23]
In October 2002, veteranWashington Post editorBen Bradlee complimentedThe Washington Times, saying, "I see them get some local stories that I think thePost doesn't have and should have had."[70] In 2007,Mother Jones reported thatThe Washington Times had become "essential reading for political news junkies" soon after its founding, and described it as a "conservative newspaper with close ties to every Republican administration since Reagan."[71]
In August 2008, in aHarper's essay, American historian[72]Thomas Frank linkedThe Washington Times to the modern American conservative movement, saying: "There is even a daily newspaper—The Washington Times—published strictly for the movement's benefit, apropaganda sheet whose distortions are so obvious and so alien that it puts one in mind of those official party organs one encounters when traveling inauthoritarian countries."[73]
In January 2011, conservative commentatorPaul Weyrich said, "The Washington Post became very arrogant and they just decided that they would determine what was news and what wasn't news and they wouldn't cover a lot of things that went on. AndThe Washington Times has forced thePost to cover a lot of things that they wouldn't cover if theTimes wasn't in existence."[74]
In December 2012,The New York Times wrote thatThe Washington Times had become "a crucial training ground for many rising conservative journalists and a must-read for those in the movement. A veritable who's who of conservatives—Tony Blankley,Frank J. Gaffney Jr.,Larry Kudlow,John Podhoretz andTony Snow—has churned out copy for its pages."[39] TheColumbia Journalism Review noted that reporters forThe Washington Times had used it as a springboard to other mainstream news outlets.[24]
Some former employees, including Whelan, have insisted thatThe Washington Times was always under Moon's control. Whelan, whose contract guaranteed editorial autonomy, left the paper in 1984 when the owners refused to renew his contract.[79] Three years later, editorial page editor William P. Cheshire and four of his staff resigned, charging that, at the explicit direction of Sang Kook Han, a top official of the Unification Church, executive editorArnaud de Borchgrave had stifled editorial criticism of political repression in South Korea under PresidentChun Doo-hwan.[80]
In 1982,The Washington Times refused to publish film critic Scott Sublett's negative review of the movieInchon, which was also sponsored by the Unification Church.[81]
In 1988,The Washington Times published a misleading story suggesting that Democratic presidential candidateMichael Dukakis had sought psychiatric help, and included a quote from Dukakis' sister-in-law saying "it is possible" he visited a psychiatrist. However,The Washington Times misleadingly clipped the full quote by the sister-in-law, which was: "It's possible, but I doubt it."[25][82]
Reporter Peggy Weyrich quit in 1991 after one of her articles aboutAnita Hill's testimony in theClarence Thomas Supreme Court nominee hearings was rewritten to depict Hill as a "fantasizer".[64]
During the presidency ofBill ClintonThe Washington Times reporting on his alleged sex scandals was often picked up by other, more respected, news media which contributed to enhanced public awareness of the topic, and eventually toClinton's impeachment. In 1999 the Senate voted to acquit Clinton, allowing him to complete his second term as president.[83][84]
In a 1997 column inThe Washington Times, Frank Gaffney falsely alleged that aseismic incident inRussia was a nuclear detonation at that nation'sNovaya Zemlya test site, which would have meant that Russia had violated theComprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTB).[85] Subsequent scientific analysis of the Novaya Zemlya event showed that it was a routineearthquake.[86] Reporting on the allegation, theBulletin of the Atomic Scientists observed that following its publication: "fax machines around Washington, D.C. and across the country poured out pages detailing Russian duplicity. They came from Frank Gaffney."[85]
In 2002,The Washington Times published a story accusing theNational Educational Association (NEA), the largest teachers'union in the United States, of teaching students that the policies of the U.S. government were partly responsible for the2001 terrorist attacks on theWorld Trade Center.[87] The NEA responded to the story by denying all of its accusations.[88][89]Brendan Nyhan, later a political science professor at theUniversity of Michigan, wrote thatThe Washington Times story was a lie and a myth.[87]
In 2018,The Washington Times published a commentary piece by retired U.S. Navy admiralJames A. Lyons which promoted conspiracy theories about themurder of Seth Rich. Lyon wrote that it was "well known in intelligence circles that Seth Rich and his brother, Aaron Rich, downloaded theDNC emails and was paid byWikiLeaks for that information."[68][90] The piece cited no evidence for the assertion.[68][91] Aaron Rich filed a lawsuit againstThe Washington Times, saying that it acted with "reckless disregard for the truth" and that it did not retract or remove the piece after "receiving notice of the falsity of the statements about Aaron after the publication".[68][91][92][93] Rich andThe Washington Times settled their lawsuit, and the paper issued an unusually robust retraction.[90][94]
On January 6, 2021, after violent pro-Trump riotersattacked the United States Capitol,The Washington Times published a false story quoting an unidentified retired military officer claiming that thefacial recognition system company XRVision had used its technology and identified two members ofantifa amid the mob.[95] XRVision quickly denied this, sending acease and desist toThe Washington Times, and issued a statement saying that its technology had actually identified twoNeo-Nazis and a believer in theQAnon conspiracy theory and that it had not done any detection work for a retired military officer authorized to share that information. On January 7, the article was removed from the website and replaced with a corrected version.[96] Before the correction, RepresentativeMatt Gaetz cited the original story as proof that antifa were partially responsible for the attack in the floor debate of the2021 United States Electoral College vote count, and it was widely shared on social media.[96]
The Washington Times has twice published articles, one written by theambassador ofTurkey to the United States and one by an attorney andlobbyist for the Turkish government, that featuredArmenian genocide denial.[97]
The Washington Times has promotedclimate change denial.[98][99][100][101][102][103]Michael E. Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center atPennsylvania State University, characterizesThe Washington Times as a prominent outlet that propagates "climate change disinformation".[99]Naomi Oreskes, Professor of the History of Science atHarvard University, andErik M. Conway, historian of science atNASA'sJet Propulsion Laboratory at theCalifornia Institute of Technology, wrote in their 2010 bookMerchants of Doubt thatThe Washington Times has given the public a false sense that the science of anthropogenic climate change was in dispute by giving disproportionate coverage of fringe viewpoints and by preventing scientists from rebutting coverage inThe Washington Times.[100]The Washington Times reprinted a column bySteve Milloy criticizing research ofclimate change in the Arctic without disclosing Milloy's financial ties to thefossil fuel industry.[104]
In 1993,The Washington Times published articles purporting to debunk climate change.[105] It headlined its story about the1997 Kyoto Protocol on climate change: "Under the deal, the use of coal, oil and other fossil fuel in the United States would be cut by more than one-third by 2002, resulting in lower standards of living for consumers and a long-term reduction in economic growth."[64]
During theClimatic Research Unit email controversy (also known as "Climategate") in 2009 in the lead-up to theUN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen,The Washington Times wrote in an editorial: "these revelations of fudged science should have a cooling effect on global-warming hysteria and the panicked policies that are being pushed forward to address the unproven theory."[106] Eight committees investigated the controversy and found no evidence of fraud or scientific misconduct. In 2010,The Washington Times published an article claiming that February 2010 snow storms "Undermin[e] The Case For Global Warming One Flake At A Time".[107] A 2014The Washington Times editorial mocked the "global warming scam" and asserted: "The planetary thermometer hasn't budged in 15 years. Wildfires, tornadoes, hurricanes and other 'extreme' weather events are at normal or below-normal levels. Pacific islands aren't submerged. There's so much ice the polar bears are celebrating."[108]The Washington Times cited a blog post in support of these claims;PolitiFact fact-checked the claims in the blog post and concluded it was "pants-on-fire" false.[108][109]The Washington Times later said that a NASA scientist claimed that global warming was on a "hiatus" and that NASA had found evidence ofglobal cooling; Rebecca Leber ofThe New Republic said that the NASA scientist in question said the opposite of whatThe Washington Times claimed.[110]
In 2015,The Washington Times published a column by Republican Texas congressmanLamar Smith in which he argued that the work of theNational Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was "not good science, [but] science fiction." TheAmerican Association for the Advancement of Science and six other scientific organizations objected to Smith's politicalisation of scientific research saying: "Scientists should not be subjected to fraud investigations or harassment simply for providing scientific results that some may see as politically controversial. Science cannot thrive when policymakers—regardless of party affiliation—use policy disagreements as a pretext to attack scientific conclusions."[103]
In November 2021, a study by theCenter for Countering Digital Hate describedThe Washington Times as being among "ten fringe publishers" that together were responsible for nearly 70 percent ofFacebook user interactions with content that denied climate change. Facebook disputed the study's methodology.[111][112][113]
In the 1990s,The Washington Times published columns which cast doubt on the scientific consensus on the causes ofozone depletion (which had led to the "ozone hole"). It published columns disputing the science as late as 2000.[114] In 1991, NASA scientists warned of the potential of a major Arctic ozone hole developing in the spring of 1992 due to elevated levels ofchlorine monoxide in the Arcticstratosphere. However, as the Arctic winter was unusually warm, the chemical reactions needed for ozone depletion did not occur. Even though the science was not incorrect,The Washington Times, along with other conservative media, subsequently created a "crying wolf" narrative, where scientists were portrayed as political activists who were following an environmental agenda rather than the science. In 1992, it published an editorial saying: "This is not the disinterested, objective, just-the-facts tone one ordinarily expects from scientists... This is the cry of the apocalyptic, laying the groundwork for a decidedly non-scientific end: public policy... it would be nice if the next time NASA cries 'wolf,' fewer journalists, politicians and citizens heed the warning like sheep."[115]
In 1995,The Washington Times published a column byFred Singer, who is known for promoting views contrary to mainstream science on a number of issues, where Singer referred to the science on the adverse health impact ofsecond-hand smoke as the "second-hand smoke scare" and accused theEnvironmental Protection Agency of distorting data when it classified second-hand smoke as harmful. Singer's column also denied the scientific consensus on climate change and on the health risks of exposure to environmentalradiation.[116][117] In 1995,The Washington Times published an editorial titled "How not to spend science dollars" condemning a grant to the National Cancer Institute to study how political contributions from tobacco companies shape policy-making and the voting behavior of politicians.[118][119]
In January 2020,The Washington Times published two articles about theCOVID-19 pandemic that suggested that the virus was created by the government of the People's Republic of China as abiological weapon. One article quoted a former Israeliintelligence officer as a source. The two articles were shared on hundreds ofsocial media sites, potentially reaching an audience of millions.[120]
Under Pruden's editorship (1992–2008),The Washington Times regularly printed excerpts from racist hard-right publications includingVDARE andAmerican Renaissance, and fromBill White, leader of the AmericanNational Socialist Workers' Party, in its Culture Briefs section.[26]
In 2013,Columbia Journalism Review reported that under Pruden's editorshipThe Washington Times was: "a forum for the racialist hard right, includingwhite nationalists, neo-Confederates, and anti-immigrant scare mongers."[26] Between 1998 and 2004, theTimes covered every biennialAmerican Renaissance conference, hosted by the white supremacistNew Century Foundation. According to theColumbia Journalism Review, "the paper's coverage of these events—which are hotbeds forholocaust deniers,neo-Nazis, andeugenicists—was stunningly one sided", and favorably depicted the conference and attendees.[26] In 2009, journalistDavid Neiwert wrote that it championed, "various white-nationalist causes emanating from the neo-Confederate movement (with which, until a recent housecleaning, two senior editors had long associations.)"[121]
A page inThe Washington Times' Sunday edition was devoted to theAmerican Civil War, on which theConfederacy was several times described with admiration.[26][32][122] In 1993, Pruden gave an interview to the neo-Confederate magazineSouthern Partisan, which has been called "arguably the most important neo-Confederate periodical" by theSouthern Poverty Law Center,[123] where he said: "Every year I make sure that we have a story in the paper about anyobservance of Robert E. Lee's birthday."[32] Pruden said, "And the fact that it falls aroundMartin Luther King's birthday," to which aSouthern Partisan interviewer interjected, "Makes it all the better," with Pruden finishing, "I make sure we have a story. Oh, yes."[32]
The Washington Times employedSam Francis, a white nationalist, as a columnist and editor, beginning in 1991 after he was chosen byPat Buchanan to take over his column.[124][125][126][127][128]
In 1995, Francis resigned or was forced out afterDinesh D'Souza reported on racist comments that Francis made at a conference hosted byAmerican Renaissance the previous year.[129][124][125][130][131] At the conference, Francis called on whites to: "reassert our identity and our solidarity, and we must do so in explicitly racial terms through the articulation of a racial consciousness as whites... The civilization that we as whites created in Europe and America could not have developed apart from the genetic endowments of the creating people."[130]
Francis was an aide to Republican senatorJohn East ofNorth Carolina before joining the editorial staff ofThe Washington Times in 1986.[130] Five years later, he became a columnist for the newspaper, and his column became syndicated.[130] In addition to his journalistic career, Francis was an adjunct scholar at theLudwig von Mises Institute ofAuburn, Alabama.[132]
In June 1995, editor-in-chiefWesley Pruden "had cut back on Francis' column" afterThe Washington Times ran his essay criticizing theSouthern Baptist Convention for its approval of a resolution which apologized forslavery.[133] In the piece, Francis asserted that "The contrition of the Southern Baptists for slavery and racism is a bit more than a politically fashionable gesture intended to massage race relations"[134] and that "Neither slavery' nor racism' as an institution is a sin."[130]
In September 1995, Pruden dismissed Francis fromThe Washington Times after conservative journalist Dinesh D'Souza, in a column inThe Washington Post, described Francis's appearance at the 1994American Renaissance conference:
A lively controversialist, Francis began with some largely valid complaints about how the Southern heritage is demonized in mainstream culture. He went on, however, to attack the liberal principles of humanism and universalism for facilitating "the war against the white race". At one point he described country music megastarGarth Brooks as "repulsive" because "he has that stupid universalist song(We Shall Be Free), in which we all intermarry."[135]
After D'Souza's column was published, Pruden "decided he did not want theTimes associated with such views after looking into other Francis writings, in which he advocated the possible deportation of legal immigrants and forced birth control for welfare mothers."[130]
When Francis died in 2005,The Washington Times wrote a "glowing"obituary that omitted his racist beliefs and his firing from the paper, and described him as a "scholarly, challenging and sometimes pungent writer"; in response, editor David Mastio of the conservativeWashington Examiner wrote in an obituary: "Sam Francis was merely a racist and doesn't deserve to be remembered as anything less."[136][137] Mastio added that Francis: "led a double life – by day he served up conservative, red meat that was strong but never quite out of bounds by mainstream standards; by night, unbeknownst to theTimes or his syndicate, he pushed white supremacist ideas."[136][137]
TheSouthern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) noted thatThe Washington Times had, by 2005, published at least 35 articles by Marian Kester Coombs, who was married to managing editor Francis Coombs. She had a record of racially incendiary rhetoric and had written for the white nationalist magazineThe Occidental Quarterly,[138] which has been described as a "stalwart" of thealt-right movement in the United States[139] and as a "far-right, racially obsessed US magazine".[140][141] The SPLC highlighted columns written by Marian Kester Coombs inThe Washington Times, in which she asserted that the whole of human history was "the struggle of ... races"; that non-white immigration is the "importing [of] poverty and revolution" that will end in "the eventual loss of sovereign American territory"; and that Muslims in England "are turning life in this once pleasant land into a misery for its native inhabitants."[138]
In 2007The Washington Times' companion news magazineInsight on the News, also called justInsight, published a story which claimed that someone on the campaign staff of American presidential candidate SenatorHillary Clinton had leaked a report to one ofInsight's reporters which said that Obama had "spent at least four years in a so-called madrassa, or Muslim seminary, in Indonesia".[142]Insight's editor,Jeff Kuhner, also claimed that the source said that the Clinton campaign was "preparing an accusation that her rival Senator Barack Obama had covered up a brief period he had spent in an Islamic religious school in Indonesia when he was six." Clinton denied the allegations. When interviewed by theNew York Times, Kuhner refused to name the person said to be the reporter's source to theNew York Times.[143]
Insight's story was reported on first by conservativetalk radio andFox News Channel, and then byThe New York Times and other major newspapers.[143]CNN reporterJohn Vause visitedState Elementary School Menteng 01, a secularpublic school which Obama had attended for one year after attending aRoman Catholic school for three, and found that each student received two hours of religious instruction per week in his or her own faith. He was told by Hardi Priyono, deputy headmaster of the school, "This is a public school. We don't focus on religion. In our daily lives, we try to respect religion, but we don't give preferential treatment."[144] Students at Besuki wore Western clothing, and theChicago Tribune described the school as "so progressive that teachers wore miniskirts and all students were encouraged to celebrateChristmas".[145][146][147] Interviews byNedra Pickler of theAssociated Press found that students of all faiths have been welcome there since before Obama's attendance. Akmad Solichin, the vice principal of the school, told Pickler: "The allegations are completely baseless. Yes, most of our students are Muslim, but there are Christians as well. Everyone's welcome here ... it's a public school."[148]
In 2008,The Washington Times published a column by Frank Gaffney that promoted the falseconspiracy theories which asserted that President Barack Obama was born in Kenya and was courting the "jihadist vote". Gaffney also published pieces in 2009 and 2010 promoting the false assertion thatObama is a Muslim.[149]
In a 2009 column entitled"'Inner Muslim' at work in Cairo", Pruden wrote that President Obama was the: "first president without an instinctive appreciation of the culture, history, tradition, common law and literature whence America sprang. The genetic imprint writ large in his 43 predecessors is missing from the Obama DNA."[26] In another 2009 column, Pruden wrote that Obama had "no natural instinct or blood impulse" for what America was about because he was "sired by aKenyan father" and "born to a mother attracted to men of theThird World."[26] Pruden's columns stirred controversy, leadingThe Washington Times to assign David Mastio, its deputy editor, to edit his work.[26]
In 2016,The Washington Times claimed that $3.6 million in federal funds were spent on a 2013 golf outing for President Obama and pro-golferTiger Woods which was widely reported on by the American news media in 2013.[150][151][152][153]Snopes rated the article "mostly false", because the estimated cost included both official presidential travel and a brief vacation inFlorida. The online article contained hyperlinks to other, unrelated, stories fromThe Washington Times. These links' appearance were not readily distinguishable from the citation links sometimes used to support or substantiate reporting.[150] Not included inThe Washington Times the article were any links to theGovernment Accountability Office (GAO) report of expenditure for the 2013 trip, which included a detailed overview of President Obama's activities of February 15 to 18, 2013.[154]
Gaffney, known for his "long history of pushing extreme anti-Muslim views", wrote weekly columns forThe Washington Times from the late 1990s to 2016.[155][156] According toJohn Esposito, a Professor of Religion and International Affairs and of Islamic Studies atGeorgetown University, Gaffney's "editorial track record in theWashington Times is long on accusation and short on supportive evidence."[157] In columns for theTimes, Gaffney helped to popularize conspiracy theories that Islamic terrorists were infiltrating the Bush administration, the conservative movement and the Obama administration.[158][159][160] In 2015, theTimes published a column describing refugees fleeing theSyrian Civil War as an "IslamicTrojan Horse" conducting a "'jihad' by another name".[161][162]
The Muslim advocacy groupCouncil on American–Islamic Relations listedThe Washington Times among media outlets it said "regularly demonstrates or supports Islamophobic themes."[163] In 1998, the Egyptian newspaperAl-Ahram wrote thatThe Washington Times its editorial policy was "rabidly anti-Arab, anti-Muslim and pro-Israel."[164]
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Insiders say the church's new line is that with the end of the Cold War, it's important to support international organizations such as the United Nations and to campaign for world peace and interfaith understanding. That stance would be awkward for The Washington Times's hard-line editor in chief, Wesley Pruden, and its stable of neoconservative columnists.
The Washington Times, the conservative daily that is linked to the Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church
Cheney talked toThe Washington Times, a much smaller newspaper known for its conservative tilt
...The Washington Times, a conservative newspaper...
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