Insight (magazine)

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Insight

Type	weekly online magazine
Format	website

Owner	News World Communications, and the Unification Church
Editor	Jeffrey T. Kuhner
Founded	1980s
Political allegiance	conservative
Headquarters	3600 New York Avenue NE Washington DC 20002

Website: insightmag.com

Insight (formerly Insight on the News) is an American conservative Internet magazine. It is owned by Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church, which also owns Insight's sister publication, the Washington Times.^[1]^[2]^[3]

1 Background
2 Controversies and scandals
3 Notable contributors
- 3.1 David Brock
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Background

Insight was founded in the 1980s as a print weekly called Insight on the News. Originally, the magazine circulated midway in frequency between sister publications The Washington Times (a daily newspaper) and the monthly World&I magazine.^[4] News World Publications also owns publications in Korea, Japan, Egypt, and Latin America. Investigative journalist Robert Parry wrote about it:

"By the 1980s, the likes of South Korean theocrat Rev. Sun Myung Moon and Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch were pouring billions of dollars into a rapidly expanding right-wing media. From these investments came a plethora of well-financed think tanks, year-round attack groups, and a vertically integrated conservative news media – from books, magazines and newspapers to radio, TV and eventually the Internet. Right-wing activists flocked to Washington and New York for good-paying jobs as journalists and pundits."^[5]

In 2004, News World Communications discontinued publication of the print magazine and hired Jeffrey T. Kuhner to run Insight as a stand-alone website. Under Kuhner, Insight does not identify it's reporters, in what Kuhner describes as an effort to encourage contributions from sources who "do not want to reveal their names". About Insight's policy, Kuhner has said:^[6]^[7]

“Reporters in Washington know a whole lot of what is going on and feel themselves shackled and prevented from reporting what they know is going on. Insight is almost like an outlet, an escape valve where they can come out with this information.”

[edit] Controversies and scandals

[edit] Arlington National Cemetery

In 1997 Insight reported that the administration of President Bill Clinton gave political donors rights to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery. This charge was widely repeated on talk radio and other conservative outlets; but was later denied by the United States Army, which has charge over Arlington Cemetery.

Spurred on by the report, a subsequent flurry of media investigations turned up the burial of Larry Lawrence, a former United States Ambassador to Switzerland at Arlington, which in turn sparked a congressional investigation. Republican Party members of congress searched military records and found no evidence that Lawrence was ever in the Merchant Marine. As a result Lawrence's body was disinterred in 1997 at taxpayer expense and moved to California. Richard Holbrooke, an assistant secretary of state, had helped attain the rights to bury Lawrence at Arlington, and had written a letter to the White House praising Lawrence and saying that he deserved burial at the National Cemetery.^[8]^[9]^[10]^[11]

[edit] Paula Jones

In 1998 CNN reported that Insight "created a stir" when Paula Jones, who had filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against President Clinton, was the magazine's guest at the annual White House Correspondents Association dinner where Clinton spoke.^[12]

[edit] 'Anonymous smear' controversy in 2008 Presidential Campaign

On January 17, 2007, Insight published a story that said the campaign staff of presidential candidate Senator Hillary Clinton had leaked a report to Insight implying that Senator Barack Obama had attended an Islamic school during his childhood in Indonesia. No basis was found for Insight's allegations, and throughout the ensuing controversy Insight steadfastly refused to present evidence or qualify its sources.^[13].

Insight's report falsely characterized State Elementary School Menteng 01, an Indonesian public school which Obama attended as a child, as an Islamic "madrassa". Although the Arabic word "madrassa" means any kind of school, in post 9/11 United States political contexts it has often been used to define Islamic seminaries - especially in the negative context of anti-Americanism and radical extremism.^[14]

Soon after Insight's story, CNN reporter John Vause visited Obama's school and found that each student received two hours of religious instruction per week in his or her own faith,^[15] and was told, "This is a public school. We don't focus on religion."^[16] Interviews by the Associated Press found that students of all faiths have been welcome there since before Obama's attendance.^[17]

[edit] SANE Project

In June of 2007, Insight reported on an undercover investigation of the Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center, located in Falls Church, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, D.C., by the group Society of Americans for National Existence (SANE). David Gaubatz, a spokesperson for the group, said:^[18]

“The ultimate goal for those at Dar Al-Hijrah is to instill Sharia law in the U.S. and have America adhere to the Islamic faith. They want America to be an Islamic state.”

Insight's story was denounced by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).^[19]

In February 2007 SANE had released a policy paper stating that the objective of SANE is to banish Islam from the US by making "adherence to Islam" ("defined as any act, including any written or oral declaration, in support of Shari’a or in furtherance of the imposition of Shari’a within any territory of the United States of America.") punishable by 20 years in prison.^[20]

[edit] Notable contributors

[edit] David Brock

In 1986, David Brock joined the staff of Insight. In the early 1990s Brock became known for his articles in the American Spectator, in which he intended to discredit President Bill Clinton and Clarence Thomas' accuser, Anita Hill, and a book The Real Anita Hill published in 1993.^[21]

In 1997, Brock recanted his conservative activities. In 2002 he published Blinded by the Right: Conscience of an Ex-Conservative, and now runs Media Matters for America, an organization that describes itself as "a web-based, not-for-profit, progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media."^[22]^[23]