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A New Weapon In An Ideology War
In May 2000, the media arm of Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church
bought itself electronic fingers. News World Communications, Moon's media
company, purchased United Press International (UPI), a once venerable news
wire service. UPI, which provided news for media worldwide, could offer a legitimizing platform for Moon's dogma — if the new owners can revive the decrepit agency.
MediaChannel affiliates report on the sorry state of UPI (which once had
200 bureaus worldwide) and investigate Moon's growing empire. A virulently
anticommunist, self-proclaimed messiah, Reverend Moon is also a prosperous
businessman who can subsidize publications around the world. From The
Washington Times to newspapers in Japan, Egypt and Latin America, Moon has
made skillful media manipulation a key strategy in winning adherents to his
vision of god and politics. As top Moon executive Bo Hi Pak declared in a
1991 documentary, "That is what the
Third World War is all about — the war of ideology."
— Aliza Dichter (liza@mediachannel.org), editor.
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God's Mogul
United Press International, the 93-year-old news wire, has joined a
church-run transnational conglomerate that includes schools, hotels, banks,
a gun manufacturer, newspapers, magazines, cultural organizations and
foundations. Reverend Moon's minions vow the news agency will remain
independent, but Bill Berkowitz, who monitors the religious right, has his
doubts.
From The Media Channel, September 13 2000
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A Pathetic Decline
Last year, Ken Layne would sit alone in the UPI headquarters writing
stories off the TV as his bosses made oblique pronouncements of reinventing
the wire service for the 21st century. But, Layne writes, UPI squandered
its chance to evolve into a much-needed alternative to the Associated
Press.
From Online Journalism Review, May 16 2000
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An Empty White House Seat
The wire service had little left but a name and a face, employing just
one-tenth of its former staff of 1,500. And now that face is gone. Helen Thomas, known as the "dean of the White
House press corps," interrogated eight presidents in 57
years with the company. This most recent buyout of the agency might not
have made the headlines but for Thomas' resignation, a nail in the coffin
of UPI's journalistic credibility.
From Guardian Unlimited, May 21 2000
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The Daily Moon
After years on the Democratic "scandal and screw-up beat," Moon's
Washington Times gained access and influence with the Republican tide that
swept Congress in 1994, wrote Allan Freedman in a Columbia Journalism
Review article published the following year. While the Times' overt
politics and often speculative reporting have led many journalists to
dismiss the paper, conservatives from President Ronald Reagan to House
majority leader Dick Armey have endorsed it as an antidote to the "liberal
media."
From Columbia Journalism Review, March 1 1995
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What Money Can Buy
By underwriting relationships with conservative U.S. leaders, including
former President Bush, and funding a slate of political publications,
Reverend Moon has bought himself a place of legitimacy in the country he
calls the "kingdom of Satan." Has he also bought freedom from media
scrutiny and legal inquiry? "The Dark Side of Reverend Moon," an
investigative series spanning two years and 12 articles, exposes Moon's
ties to crimes ranging from drug trafficking to tax evasion,
campaign-finance fraud to espionage. The authors ask why no one seems to notice.
From The Media Consortium,
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AS THE MEDIA WATCH THE WORLD, WE WATCH THE
MEDIA.
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Watch excerpts from the show: