I guess Howie Kurtz will have to slum it with Washington Examiner employees now:
Washington Times executives are negotiating to sell the newspaper, after the Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s family cut off most of the annual subsidy of about $35 million that has kept the Unification Church-backed paper afloat, company officials said.
I’ve said this a million times so I won’t belabor it: it’s strange that for the last 20 years, a Korean cult leader was one of the most important figures in American media.
Update. Via Reader JK, this documentary about the Moonies looks interesting.
aimai
Why are there always more evil billionaires than good ones?
aimai
Tonal Crow
Aw, poor babies can’t make it in the marketplace. Also, could the Moon family be in financial trouble? It would be irresponsible not to speculate.
Mike Kay
“Politico” made the moonie times obsolete.
The irony: “politico” also survives because of wingnut welfare
subsidies.Feedom isn’t fee.
Maude
@aimai:
Someone once said that in order to get that much money, you have to be a bit on the ratty side.
No one is worth millions, never mind billions.
Unless of course, I make millions. Then, what I wrote about ratty is hogwash.
kommrade reproductive vigor
On the one hand: Bwahahahaha! Ha.
On the other: Fuck, I think D.C. is about to get a Murdoch-owned paper.
arguingwithsignposts
I think you’re vastly overstating the influence of the WaTi. Let’s go down a list (in no particular order):
NYT
WaPo,
ChiTrib
LaTimes
McClatchy
AP
CNN
NBC
ABC
CBS
(and their assorted cable outlets)
FOX
all before I’d even *consider* the WaTi.
If you mean “sucking GOP dick in the Village, then, okay, you may have a point.”
Third Eye Open
I always wondered if Anton LaVey had been a potent right-winger and owned a newspaper in a large media-market, if the GOP would have quoted him favorably…guess we will never know.
mr. whipple
Maybe Soros can buy it and restart it as The Daily Worker.
Comrade Luke
What was the return on the $35mil/yr investment?
Poopyman
CSPAN told me the same thing, about 5 minutes after I opened BJ, so you scooped them there, kinda.
BTW, it’s probably unnecessary to point out that operating a pair of chopsticks after a couple of margheritas is problematic, at best. At least I’m home, so no driving for me.
Poopy + 2
gbear
@Maude:
Maybe most of the time. A home designer I worked for did a project for a guy who designed some hearing aide circuitry that took off and made him a millionaire. The couple went straight from an upper duplex on a busy St. Paul commercial street to a $3.5 million home on the most expensive lot in a posh suburb.
Maybe they’re ratty now, but they were a nice couple then.
Maybe Ted Turner wants to get back into media ownership again?
me
This is my favorite Moon related story ever.
mr. whipple
@Comrade Luke: 35 million worth of conservative propaganda, propaganda and more propaganda.
JGabriel
It’s just as strange that the Sec’y o’ State doesn’t make Time’s most influential list, but an Alaskan cult leader does.
.
Calipygian
Is the rev. Sun young moon
El Cid
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
de stijl
I’ve never been able to figure out the widestream acceptance of the Moonie Times by the American right who write.
You’d think that one would be wary of writing for or quoting a cult owned newspaper whether they support your politics or not. Or putting their fucking columnists on every god damned Sunday morning show there ever was.
The fact that WT columnists got any citations or appeared on any Village news shows is frankly appalling.
Why this hasn’t been a screaming, Howard Kurtz and Jack Shafer rend their shirts type of scandal since the get-go has always puzzled the hell out of me.
If the enemy of your enemy is a whacked out end-times cult…
JK
testing
MMM
I believe this comment is appropriate here as any comment on this website:
Good loving gone bad
Warren Terra
@Arguingwithsignposts
The Moonie Times doesn’t influence the national consciousness, but it at least used to have a disproportionate impact where it counts: in DC – and an outsized presence on C-SPAN.
Enlightened Layperson
I’ve said this a million times so I won’t belabor it: it’s strange that for the last 20 years, a Korean cult leader was one of the most important figures in American media.
Um, considering some of the other most important figures in American media, it’s a lot less strange than one could wish.
Steeplejack
@aimai:
“The love of money is the root of all evil”? (Timothy 6:10)
Joey Maloney
DougJ wins at least half an internet for the post title.
Will Kimbrough’s “Goodnight Moon”
Kobie
@JGabriel: Amen to both points.
Re: Rev. Moon, not only is it strange that he WAS so influential, but also that NOBODY EVER SAID SHIT ABOUT IT. I mean, WE did, but we’re mere internet commentariat. Why didn’t even the best liberal watchdogs like MMFA scream this from the rooftops every time the Times printed something completely batshit?
bob h
And if I remember right, one who was convicted of income tax evasion.
aimai
“Behind every great fortune, lies a great crime.” Balzac. Somewhere. I know it was an epigraph in The Godfather, of all places.
The Moonie Times had an outsize effect on the Washington gossip circuit and served as a place that right wingers and homophobes and lunatics of all stripes could be sure of a guaranteed check and a place to burnish their resumes. It was just like, and quite as effective, any other right wing thinktank. What’s amazing is how quietly this was done and how little the public grasped it. I think its because “freaky korean religious nut” didn’t have the staying power of “jew york times” in the popular imagination. Also, that which is right wing and conservative was seen as totally normal by other media outlets. A comperable operation run by unions and anarchists? Its scoops and its reporters would never have made the jump in and out of the mainstream the way the Moonies did.
aimai
Mike in NC
The Moonie Times cropped up back in the Reagan era as a DC-based dispenser of GOP propaganda. No coincidence that the far right has been obsessed over the “threat” of North Korea since then. It fed billions of our tax dollars to defense contractors and the politicians who they own.
If it dies, good riddance. FOX News will hire them all.
El Cid
Another Moonie subsidiary: the bizarre, fascist-loving (I mean that literally, no creativeness here) World Anti-Communist League and its U.S. spinoff, the U.S. Council for World Freedom, headed by the Latin American death squad enthusiast John K. Singlaub, and beloved organization of the Reagan administration, which never met a right wing death squad or genocidal government it didn’t like.
Again, liberals get mainstream screaming about for being in the same zip code as Bill Ayers, but right wingers can consort with actual Nazis, as in, fascist holdovers from WWII, and Latin American genocidalists and death squadders, and it not be a big issue.
mako
Most important?
Ever know anyone who actually read the Washington Times?
Me neither.
jake the snake
How does a cult become a respected mainstream religion.
Contribute millions to conservatice causes. Either that or convert the Emperor’s wife
mb
What is amazing is the number of reporters who refuse to say what the WT really is, the real role it played for Moon.
It not only supplied credibility and protection for the Moon movement it moved the USA’s political number line right, empowered the theocratic, homophobic, union hating, racist and, in general, worst elements of the conservative movement – elements that now have control the conservative movement.
There would be no reality free tea movement and given the closeness of our elections, there would have never been a Bush 43 presidency absent Moon’s cash and influence. Moon brags about “moonizing” American and he did.
Beyond the face it gave him, let’s be frank here – the paper was an intelligence operation for Moon and his friends which include both North and South Korea and likely the industrialists in Japan.
Moon BRAGS about using the paper as an intel asset.
James Whelan the paper’s first editor said the Moon movement was “subverting our political system.” It is exactly as the government of Chile gave as a reason why it would not legalize the Moon org in their country – “The government says Moon’s doctrine ‘injures the political stability of the democratic system that governs the nation’ and promotes conflict among the legislative, executive and judicial branches.”
Moon’s goal is for Korea to be number one, anyone still wonder why Moon would subvert our political system?
If you have not watched the panel discussion featuring three very conservative former editors of Moon’s media from 1991, then it is HIGHLY unlikely you know what the WT was about or its purpose.
Watch this very closely, in particular, Michael Warder’s talk. He explains how the paper is used by Moon, not just to gather intelligence for Moon and his friends, but to RECRUIT FOR THE UNIFICATION CHURCH! Yes, everyone who has ever written that the paper does not push Moon as the messiah is a lair or an uniformed fool.
Watch it.
Warder explains as well as anyone what the WT is and why. He says Moon is bipartisan and he is to some extent, but the people Warder names as liberals who supported Moon needs more explaining (Lawrence Tribe was not a ‘supporter’ of Moon but he did think there were legit legal issues about the tax case – Joseph Lowery left Moon’s web many years ago and then was re-snagged by Moon’s daughter a couple years ago – Moon gave him a nice gold watch) – Moon spent billions manipulating our political system – you won’t find but a drop or two that went to anything that could be called “liberal”… his support of the UN is only done in as much as the UN will let him be an influence on it, in his hope that it will theocratize, not exactly a liberal goal.
This all shows what a bunch of reality-free uninformed hypocrites conservatives are. Particularly when they take after Soros like trained dogs given that Soros is a US citizen who has given a pittance to liberal causes compared to non citizen Moon who has spent billions propping up and molding right wing thought over 30 years.
Oh, did I mention that Moon brought the cash to do this mostly from Japan where UC leaders and members continue to be arrested for swindling widows out of vast sums? The claims, which are said to be less than one tenth of the damages to the non litigious people of Japan, have now topped one billion dollars.
mb
Actually Moon played both ends of the block on that. While the paper had to keep Moon’s misleading claim of being anti-communist – he also wants “American style democracy” replaced – Moon also sent WT reporters to NK in an effort to “make a new image” of NK. Josette Shiner did that for him. She dutifully wrote some promotional articles about Kim Il Sung for the WT.
According to DIA docs Moon gave NK anywhere from “several tens of millions” to 3 billion dollars to NK as the sweetener to get Moon a meeting with Kim Il Sung in 1991.
Moon’s goal has always been to make Asia, particularly Korea North and South, number one in the world. His praise of American is pure BS, a con, a successful con job since republicans knew 30 years ago they could NEVER gain control of the entire government without help from outside they welcomed his influence on our nation.
Of course none of this touches on the fact that Moon teaches that he is the messiah who all former religious leaders including Mohammad, Jesus – all of them bow before Moon. Moon says Jesus now serves his dead son in heaven.
The party, the movement that is obsessed with the arrival of an anti Christ has been led for 30 years by a man who calls himself the Messiah and their savior a failure.
But by G-d let’s all worry about George Soros. :)
Today’s reality free, Moon molded conservatism is our nation’s number one national security issue.
mb
First, anyone who questions the WT influence the last 28 years doesn’t know what they are talking about. It has been hugely influential here and abroad. You have to go back the time when there was no Fox, no Rush and no Drudge – Moon made all of them possible.
The 35 million figure is misleading – they budgeted a 40 million a year subsidy the last few years but the total he spent is over two billion on the paper – as attested to by his own daughter (MOON himself put the figure at a billion by 1991).
Let me repeat, if you seriously want to know what the WT was, what Moon got for his cash, WATCH THIS PANEL discussion.
Particularly, Mr. Warder’s talk. Cheshire gives some historical background and Whelan will explain why the media doesn’t go after the WT. They are very entertaining speakers. It has some sound trouble after the talks but at the end during a Q&A, Warder tells why he left the Moon org. Two reasons, one is they wanted to take his child and have Korean nannies raise it. He also said he came to realize what many others have said, Moon is a racist who believes Koreans are the master race.
Dougj, I think if you watch the video you will make a post featuring it. It is extremely important as we watch this subverting intel operation slither out of town. It will never pay for what it did to our country. In fact, the nation will never understand it because they won’t be told there is anything there to see.
Patrick
Maybe I’m dense and I’m missing some joke…
I read “I guess Howie Kurtz will have to slum it with Washington Examiner employees now:”
to imply Howie needs to find a job because the WiTi is being sold / going under.
Howie works for the Washington Post, right?
dj spellchecka
here’s a 12 page smackdown on all of moon’s assorted crimes by robert perry..well worth the look:
” After all, for 28 years, the right-wing Washington Times has sent disinformation slithering through the U.S. political system while creating a nest for propagandists who have befouled American democracy with irrationality and dirty tricks.
Indeed, one could say that Moon’s newspaper pioneered the modern style of deceptive ‘journalism’ that is the daily fare on Fox News, angry talk radio and right-wing blogs. ”
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2010/050110.html
and it does appear that nobody other than movement republicans and k-streeters read the thing [pay particular attention to those sunday numbers]…WaPo : “The Times’ circulation is unclear. The paper stopped reporting to the Audit Bureau of Circulation in 2008, when the paper had circulation of 86,710 copies on weekdays and 37,259 on Sundays. (Nicholas Chiaia said the Times, now published only on weekdays, has a circulation of 50,000, but Times executives said it’s about 42,000, with fewer than 25,000 home subscribers.)”
DougJ
@Patrick:
He stocks his show with Moonie “reporters”.
mb
Trying to judge the WT’s role/influence on our political system and around the world by circulation numbers is grossly missing the point.
Not only did Reagan and Bush 1 make it their primary paper, most democrats, including people like Ted Kennedy, said it was a must read because the republicans fed it stories. It was a must read for those who were trying to counter their right wing propaganda. You had to go through it if you wanted to talk to repubs is what Kerry thought when he got the WT to print an op-ed of his on the environment several years ago. H. Clinton asked Josette Shiner to carry her op ed when she was First Lady in another example of democrats bowing to the right instead of standing up and calling the paper what it was, a deceptive propaganda rag created by a right wing theocrat and funded by money swindled from widows in Japan.
At one time it was a primary source of info for the Voice of America not to mention all of its Moon subsidized writers popping up all over on TV and radio spewing the Moonganda.
What paper do you think Rush has been quoting the last 20 years? Scaife’s Pitt Trib Review? haha Do you think he quoted National Review? hah Come on, he quoted the misinformation and overtly biased info fed the nation by the WT. It was quoted as a legit “Washington” source – Rush didn’t say, “Hey, this is the latest from the Moon’s effort to screw your democracy and promote himself as the Messiah!” Little old farmers in Nebraska and Montana had no idea who was telling them through Rush what to think, leading them.
Howard Kurtz is a perfect example of what Whelan describes in his talk here about why reporters with other papers don’t go after Moon’s propaganda unit. Kurtz has worked overtime trying to sell people on the lie that the WT was independent of Moon or the latest lie, that Solomon was tyring to move the paper to the center by changing a few adjectives and taking out some quotation marks.
Taiko
Who reads the Moonie Times? Well, I used to every day – back in the Reagan era. It was part of my job. (Seems that’s the only reason anyone has ever read it).
The fact that a despised foreign religious cult leader (and the Moonies were far more despised back then than they are today) funded, to the tune of millions annually, an obviously hard-right biased rag with non-sensical, non-factual “reporting” all while wrapping itself in the American flag was taken seriously by anyone was a never ending source of frighteningly deep cognitive dissonance to me.
Then the foreign dude with the Communist wife showed up and launched Fox News, et al. More flags, more “America, Fcuk Yeah!,” than EVAH!
And I finally realized, I needed to get with the program. Cults are kool. Boehner isn’t orange, he’s glowing with righteous anticipation of what’s next!