Cybercast News Service

Cybercast News Service (CNS) is a subsidiary of the conservative news monitoring group, the Media Research Center (MRC). Originally calling itself the "Conservative News Service," CNS changed its name to Cybercast in 2000.

History
CNS was launched on July 16, 1998, by founder Brent Bozell, as an "alternative news service" to mainstream news sources which reports by MRC claim have a "liberal bias."

CNS says it strives to "cover stories that are subject to the bias of omission and report on other news subject to bias by commission," and "endeavors to fairly present all legitimate sides of a story."

In September 2007, Terry Jeffrey, former editor of the conservative weekly Human Events, was named editor-in-chief, replacing David Thibault, who died earlier in the year.

Personnel
Current CNS personnel include :
 * L. Brent Bozell III, President
 * Terry Jeffrey - Editor-in-Chief
 * Michael Chapman - Managing Editor
 * Patrick Goodenough - International Editor
 * Craig Bannister, Communications Director
 * Eric Pairel, Chief Technology Officer
 * Stuart James, Systems Administrator

Washington News Staff

 * Melanie Hunter, Senior Editor
 * Susan Jones, Senior Editor
 * Randy Hall, Staff Writer/Editor
 * Pete Winn, Senior Staff Writer
 * Josiah Ryan, Staff Writer
 * Fred Lucas, Staff Writer
 * Kevin Mooney, Staff Writer
 * Penny Starr, Staff Writer
 * Nicholas Ballasy, Video Reporter

Foreign Bureaus

 * Julie Stahl, Jerusalem Bureau Chief
 * Sergei Blagov, International Correspondent
 * Eva Cahen, International Correspondent
 * Mark Mayne, International Correspondent
 * Kevin McCandless, International Correspondent
 * Stephen Mbogo, International Correspondent
 * Deepak Mahaan, International Correspondent

Regular Columnists

 * Terry Jeffrey
 * Alan Caruba
 * Michelle Malkin
 * Ben Shapiro
 * Pat Buchanan

Iraqi Intelligence Service documents
On October 4, 2004, CNS reported that a "senior government official who is not a political appointee" provided CNS with 42 pages of Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) documents which were then translated from Arabic by two CNS translators. CNS reports that the official told them that the documents answer "whether or not Iraq was a state sponsor of Islamic terrorism against the United States. It also answers whether or not Iraq had an ongoing biological warfare project continuing through the period when the UNSCOM inspections ended." Details can be found at Cybercast News Service: Claim of Hussein's WMD, Ties to Al Qaeda.

False claim about Paul Begala
A July 15, 2005, CNS article claimed that Democratic strategist Paul Begala said that Republicans wanted to kill him and his family. Begala vehemently denied this, claiming that when he said, "They want to kill me and my children if they can," he was referring to terrorists, not Republicans. CNS refused to retract the claim, insisting that "[t]here was nothing unclear about what Begala said." Then-CNS editor in chief David Thibault challenged Begala for his "unmistakable and outrageous coupling of terrorists and Republicans."

Attack on John Murtha
A January 13, 2006, CNS article assailed the military record of Democratic Rep. John Murtha, a former Marine who has heavily criticized the Iraq war. The article quoted people who were either former political opponents of Murtha or who were dead or incapacitated casting aspersions on the two Purple Hearts Murtha earned while serving in the Vietnam War. The next day, the Washington Post repeated the article's allegations. Critics likened the CNS article to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth attacks on the war record of Democrat John Kerry during the 2004 presidential campaign as another example of conservatives attempting to discredit the military credentials of Democrats in order to blunt their criticism of the Iraq war.

Contact details
Cybercast News Service 325 S. Patrick Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone: 703-683-9733 Toll-Free: 877-CNS-NEWS URL: http://www.cnsnews.com/

Related SourceWatch Resources

 * Cybercast News Service: Claim of Hussein's WMD, Ties to Al Qaeda
 * Marc Morano
 * Crosswalk
 * GOPUSA
 * Media Research Center
 * Parents Television Council
 * Swiftboating John Murtha
 * Talon News

2002

 * Terry Krepel, "The Aborted Debate", ConWebWatch, January 4, 2002.

2004

 * George Putnam, "One Reporter's Opinion - Fraud on Every Front!" NewsMax, May 28, 2004: [CNS News "feeds" NewsMax]: "A day before this public news conference, I received a report from Scott Wheeler of CNS News. Scott told me of an Iranian man convicted of drug trafficking, also suspected of money laundering and smuggling people from Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Jordan into the U.S."

2005

 * "Revealing More About Phony 'Voting Rights' Org, GOPUSA Runs CNS Story on GOP Front Group ACVR!," bradblog, March 31, 2005: "As it turns out, Hogenson -- the Founding and Executive Editor of CNS and also (no conflict at all here) the Radio Services Manager at the RNC Press Office! -- is the longtime compadre to one of the two known lead scheisters at ACVR, Jim Dyke. ... Dyke, who has worked hand-in-hand for years in his position at the RNC with Hogenson, was the 2004 RNC Communications Director."
 * "Chart: Al-Qa`ida's WMD Activities," by Weapons of Mass Destruction Terrorism Research Program at Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey Institute of International Studies, May 13, 2005 (update). Cites: Scott Wheeler, "Evidence Points to Dirty-Bomb Plot," Insight Magazine (World Net Daily), October 29, 2003.
 * Terry Krepel, "Prolonging the Lie", ConWebWatch, July 29, 2005.

2006

 * Hunter, "The Murtha-Bashing Cybercast News Service Swarms with Pro-Exxon, Pro-Monsanto Reports, Quotes, and Commentary. Who's Paid to do What?" Political Cortex, January 16, 2006.
 * Terry Krepel, "A Textbook Example of Conservative Journalism", ConWebWatch, January 18, 2006.

2007

 * Terry Krepel, "Once and Future Bias", ConWebWatch, November 8, 2007.

2008

 * Terry Krepel, "Planned Attacks", ConWebWatch, July 17, 2008.

GOPUSA News Service

 * GOPUSA.com News web page.
 * "New GOPUSA News Service, Cybercast News, Replaces Talon News; Now Embroiled in Scandal Over Flooding Google News With Identical Jeff Gannon Articles," The Nashua Advocate Blogspot, March 11, 2005.
 * "Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss: Brent Bozell Supplants Jeff Gannon As Man Most Likely to Be Accused of Involvement in Bush Propaganda Scheme," The Nashua Advocate Blogspot, March 11, 2005.