* LifeNews Fabricates Pro-Life News: Bob Enyart and John Lofton discussed World Magazine's false report, which they picked up from LifeNews.com, that President Bush nominated 20 pro-life judges. This is a completely fabricated characterization of those judges. World publisher Joel Belz personally refused to print a correction, showing himself willing to continue to mislead his readers rather than correct the record. Steve Ertelt of LifeNews and Joel Belz are currently in the running for the Christian media's Jayson Blair award.
The following shocking summary and excerpts come from the John Lofton's False Reporting by World Magazine, Joel Belz, Lynn Vincent, Steve Ertelt and LifeNews piece:
World Magazine... in a story headlined Climate Change by Lynn Vincent, published the following: "What may be the biggest abortion-related political battle of 2005 began on Dec. 23, 2004, when President Bush announced that he would renominate 20 pro-life judges." [Enyart: Bush by the way, announced NO SUCH THING!] How is it known that these nominees were "pro-life?" The Vincent article provided no evidence that these 20 judicial nominees were "pro-life." And Mr. Bush repeatedly said he would have no litmus test for his judicial nominees... When I called Lynn Vincent and put this question to her, she said she got this "pro-life" characterization from Steve Ertelt's "LifeNews.com" Web site. OK, so I go to Ertelt's Web site and sure enough there's a story by him with the headline "President Bush Will Renominate 20 Pro-Life Judges, Democrat Fight Looms." The lead paragraph repeats the "20 pro-life judges" phraseology. But, there's nothing in the story showing specifically how any of the 20 are "pro-life."