Debunking World Net Daily

During a recent visit with my family, my younger brother Daniel who is a Marine stationed at Camp Lejeune, told me about this conversation he had. This conversation was about an article on the ultra-conservative website World Net Daily.

This particular article was written by ultra-conservative, homophobic, born-again Christian Pat Boone. As many of us know, neither World Net Daily nor Mr. Boone have done much to earn credibility points among intellectuals. Nevertheless, millions of conservatives follow them and give much credence to what they say. Many people actually consider World Net Daily to be a credible source of news. 

My brother is not one of these people. He was giving me an example of how this man and this website distort facts and present them to an audience that they know will do no fact-checking of their own. And the stories are presented in ways that they know will conjure up Christian pride and the holier-than-thou attitude of the Evangelical American Christian.

Preying on Ignorance

This particular article by Mr. Boone was posted in Oct 2008. It concerns an incident in India in which a Dalit girl was burned alive for walking somewhere she was not supposed to. Mr. Boone wrote, "in April, a 6-year-old Dalit (untouchable) girl was thrown into a roaring fire about 40 km from the temple town of Mathura and burned alive. The little girl was accused of the dastardly crime of walking through the footpath meant for only the upper castes, on the very day those "upper caste" people were exulting over India's successful new satellite launch – another devastating indictment of mankind."

The implication upon first read is pretty clear. It sure sounds like the Indian legal system carried out this burning and the crime was nothing more than a violation of an ancient caste system. 

Mr. Boone goes on to say, "India is considered a Hindu nation, in much the same way Arab states are Muslim and England and the U.S. are Christian." Again, here we have an underlying message. These atrocious penalties are carried out by non-Christian nations and are a part of their sub-standard, heathen, savage culture.

Mr. Boone continues to describe how the Dalits are unfairly treated and relegated to the lowest levels of human worth. All this is certainly true. But then he writes that not all Dalits are Hindu. "I met with a young Dalit in my office just recently. He's a fine, good looking, very intelligent young man named Jyothi. He loves his country, his people and his God. He's a Christian."

So the intelligent Dalits are Christians?

Or is he only concerned about this because Jyothi is a Christian?

What Really Happened

So that is the story from World Net Daily. But after my brother did a little fact checking of his own, he found the news article on an Indian news website, The Times of India. Here we find a totally different story.

Yes, there was indeed a conflict. The Dalit girl and her mother did apparently use a disputed road in order to "answer nature's call." As they passed over this road, a 16 year old boy attacked them. "Samir (the attacker) objected to this and before Manju (the mother) could protest, he allegedly picked up Kamlesh (the daughter) and threw her on a garbage dump under fire nearby. When Manju tried to save her daughter, Samir allegedly attacked her as well. However, after Saudan came out of the house and raised an alarm, Samir fled from the scene."

Clearly this is not how the incident is portrayed by Mr. Boone. 

The article reports that police are seeking charges against Samir, the attacker. "The accused has been arr ested on charges of attempt to murder and under sections 3 and 4 of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Protection of Civil Rights) Act."

"We are thinking of taking more serious action against the accused under the Gangsters Act...We want a message to go so that nobody does such a thing in future," said SSP, Mathura, RK Chaturvedi, but denied that the road was meant only for the upper caste people. 

So the truth is that a teenage boy attacked a girl of a lower class and is being accused of the crime. The fact that the little girl was burned is no result of a savage backwards legal system that defends ruthless attacks on lower caste members.

Who would disagree that India has a problem with poverty? What intellectual westerner can understand an ancient caste system? No one would argue with Mr. Boone if these were the points he wanted to make. But these are not his points. Read his article and we will see that he was using this incident to rally Christians to pray for a more civilized, orderly world by spreading their faith.

I'm sure many people agree with Mr. Boone and World Net Daily. But hopefully better cases can be made than this one. If they must resort to these distortions in order to make their points, why take them seriously? Why spread false information? Why take advantage of the laziness of your readers? Are these intentional lies or are they just the result of shoddy journalism? Or both? Are they taking advantage of lazy readers or are they just lazy themselves?

Thanks to my bro for letting me know about this. For proving that all it takes is a little time and effort and liars like these can be easily debunked.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=79016

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Cities/Lucknow/Youth_throws_minor_Dalit_girl_in_fire/articleshow/3000225.cms