North Country Gazette

False Reporting By Steven Ertelt

Posted on Tuesday, 11 of December , 2007 at 11:44 am

COMMENTARY

Steven Ertelt says he’s “in it” for the cause, not for the money—-but there’s that ever present donation button on the end of his frantic and frankly libelous rebuttal of an op-ed piece published last week by The North Country Gazette about Ertelt’s perceived lack of journalistic integrity. 

Of course, there was his ever present by-line too.  How vain.

On Dec. 7, after Steven Ertelt of LifeNews.com, an anti-abortion, pro-life fanatic had once again helped himself to an exclusive copyrighted article regarding TerriPAC, the now-defunct political action committee of Michael Schiavo, NCG make it known publicly. http://www.northcountrygazette.org/2007/12/07/ertelt_strikes_again/ 

Ertelt has a well-established practice of helping himself to exclusive copyrighted articles for LifeNews.com without giving attribution and putting his donation button at the end of his story after someone else does the work.

His material isn’t always factual either, reports nationally known journalist John Lofton who penned an article about Ertelt’s reporting.

“False Reporting By Steve Ertelt’s ‘LifeNews.com’ Repeated by “World” Magazine—Mislead Christians To Think Bush Would Name Pro-Life Judges” by John Lofton. http://www.theamericanview.com/index.php?id=324

For more than 35 years John Lofton has covered national politics and cultural/religious issues as a journalist, nationally-syndicated columnist, TV-radio commentator/analyst and political advisor.

His article about Mr. Ertelt’s “journalism” follows:

“So, how did it come about that so many sincere Christian conservatives supported President Bush because they thought he had a good record in picking “pro-life judges?” Well, sad to say, one reason is because some supposedly Christian, pro-life news organizations have reported as fact information that is fiction.

Joel Belz, publisher of ‘World’ magazine, says: No clarification, no correction, stop calling us.

For example, in “World” magazine early this year (1/15/05), in a story headlined “Climate Change,” Lynn Vincent wrote 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, including formerly filibustered nominees Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor and Texas Supreme Court Judge Priscilla Owen.” Interesting, I thought, as I read this. But, 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.

So, again: How was it known that these 20 nominees were “pro-life?”

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, dated December 23, 2004, 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.”

And this is not the only time Ertelt — again, with no evidence provided to back up what he alleged — has alluded to Mr. Bush’s “pro-life” judicial nominees. In a December 27, 2004, article he wrote: “Last week, President Bush announced that he would renominate twenty pro-life judges for key federal court positions.” Mr. Bush, of course, did not use the words “pro-life.” And this year, in a February 15, 2005, article, Ertelt wrote:

“On Monday, President Bush nominated about 20 pro-life judges he wants on federal appeals and district courts.” And in an Oct. 14, 2004, piece, Ertelt listed former Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor as one of the “pro-life” people Mr. Bush was naming to be a judge. He wrote: “Pryor drew praise from pro-life groups and criticism from abortion advocates after his stalwart defense of his pro-life position during hearings in the Senate Judiciary Committee.”

Well, yes, Pryor did defend his own pro-life views. But, Ertelt left out the fact that in this same hearing Pryor said: “Even though I strongly disagree with Roe v. Wade, I have acted in accordance with it as attorney general and would continue to do so as a court of appeals judge”!!! Pryor was also the chief persecutor of former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore, the leader of the lynch-mob that ousted Moore from office. When I emailed Ertelt asking for his evidence re: Bush’s supposedly “20 pro-life judges,” he emailed back saying: “See our past stories as we’ve covered virtually all of them and their actions/statements. Use our search on our web site to find a specific person.”

I did this. The result was that many of the 20 judges referred to by Ertelt were not mentioned at all on his Web site; the ones that were mentioned had no information about them showing they were “pro-life.” Over a period of several days, I sent numerous emails to Ertelt telling him his Web site revealed no information showing that any of these 20 judges were “pro-life.” He did not reply to any of these emails.

Sad to say, Ertelt’s fraudulent Bush propaganda was widely disseminated. A Google search showed about 135 references to his unsubstantiated assertion that the President has renominated “20 pro-life judges.”

Apparently these types of situations have been an Ertelt practice as according to the Internet, when LifeNews.com debuted in 2003, it closely mirrored an already well established website known as www.lifesitenews.com 

An article published by the publishers of LifeSiteNews.com discussed the similiarites between the site which they said was “launched” on June 23, 2003, by Ertelt.

http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2003/oct/03100609.html 

LifeSiteNews aptly described Ertlet as “republishing news stories from other sources under the title of Pro-Life Infonet. That service was very similar to another service run for years by Ted Gerk which is called Pro-Life E-News”. “Very soon after the LifeNews.com launch was announced, LifeSiteNews personally contacted Steve Ertelt suggesting that his use of a trademark name and service so similar to ours would cause confusion among Internet readers.

“Considering that LifeSiteNews had already been operating with its trademark for some time and LifeNews.com was only at its very beginning, we requested that Mr. Ertelt consider modifying his service name to make it more distinct in order to avoid the inevitable confusion that would arise amongst some Internet readers. Mr. Ertelt did not at all agree that there was any problem and would not consider any modifications to his branding. He was previously well aware of LifeSiteNews.com as we had communicated on other occasions in the past years and months about other problems”.

Typical Ertelt.    12-11-07