'FrontPage Magazine' (also known as '
FRONTPAGEMAG.COM') is an online
conservative political magazine, edited by
David Horowitz and is published by the
David Horowitz Freedom Center (DHFC) (formerly the Center for the Study of Public Culture), a
non-profit organization in
Los Angeles, California.
FrontPage Magazine's main focus is on issues pertaining to
foreign policy,
war, and
Islamist terrorism. It regularly condemns official enemies of the U.S. and is a strong proponent of the
war on terror, the
Iraq War, and
Israel's military actions. It has also published articles condemning what it perceives as
left-wing organizations and causes, such as the
Democratic party, the
media, the
environmental movement,
affirmative action,
reparations for slavery, left-wing interpretations of
feminism,
Islamism,
socialism,
communism,
anarchism,
anti-war groups, the
United Nations, and other matters.
DHFC says that the FrontPage website was read by 500,000 different readers per month during
2006.
[1][2]
FPM Man of the Year
On January 1, 2007, FrontPage Magazine named
Ignacio Ramos and
Jose Compean its "People Of The Year - 2006".
[3] The two
United States Border Patrol agents shot drug smuggler
Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila near the US-Mexico border. They had been convicted of assault with serious bodily injury, assault with a deadly weapon, discharge of a firearm in relation to a crime of violence, violating the civil rights of an illegal alien, and obstruction of justice “for not reporting that their weapons had been fired”. They had been sentenced to 11 years and 1 day and 12 years imprisonment, respectively, and were subsequently incarcerated.
[4] FrontPage Magazine deemed them guilty only of "bureaucratic infractions"; "these men have lost their money, their reputations, and (perhaps soon) their freedom trying to protect our nation. For that, they deserve our thanks".
[5]
FPM's 2003 "Man of the Year" was Col.
Allen B. West, former commander of the 20th Field Artillery Regiment, 2nd Battalion, 4th Infantry Division, who had been punished with a $5,000 fine and allowed to retire only as a Lieutenant Colonel after being charged with mistreatment of an Iraqi prisoner.
[6]
Criticism
Abukar Arman has criticized the publication as "
Islamophobic" and a "pseudo news outlet," condemning them for "hyperbolic" arguments and "paranoia-driven logic" writing, "FrontPage Magazine has dedicated three or so articles aimed to smear this writer and activist's name, along with other Muslims of good community standing. All three vicious diatribes were authored by the same man, Patrick Poole - an obscure character who apparently specializes in maligning Muslims and Islamic organizations."
[7][8]
Chip Berlet, writing for the
Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), identified Horowitz's Center for the Study of Popular Culture as one of 17 "right-wing foundations and think tanks support[ing] efforts to make bigoted and discredited ideas respectable." Berlet accused Horowitz of blaming
slavery on "'black
Africans ... abetted by dark-skinned
Arabs'" and of "attack[ing] minority 'demands for special treatment' as 'only necessary because some blacks can't seem to locate the ladder of opportunity within reach of others,' rejecting the idea that they could be the victims of lingering racism."
[9] Responding with an open letter to
Morris Dees, president of the SPLC, Horowitz stated that his reminder that the slaves transported to America were bought from African and Arab slavers was a response to demands that only whites pay blacks reparations, not to hold Africans and Arabs solely responsible for slavery, and that the statement that he had denied lingering racism was "a calculated and carefully constructed lie." The letter said that Berlet's work was "so tendentious, so filled with transparent misrepresentations and smears that if you continue to post the report you will create for your Southern Poverty Law Center a well-earned reputation as a hate group itself."
[10] Berlet responded: "The Center for the Study of Popular Culture has produced a vast amount of text marked by nasty polemic and exceptional insensitivity around issues of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual identity. Writers for the CSPC tend to use language that exacerbates societal tensions rather than seeking some form of constructive critical discourse. They are mainstreaming bigotry—and this is precisely the topic of my article in ''Intelligence Report.''"
[11] Subsequent critical pieces on Berlet and the SPLC have been featured on FPM.
[12][13]
In 2003 the SPLC criticized Front Page for calling the
NAACP "a defamation and shakedown organization."
[14]
Media Matters for America criticized FrontPageMag.com senior editor
Jacob Laksin for "falsely claim[ing] Media Matters 'concede[d]' that half the professors in Horowitz's book 'use their classrooms for political agendas'."
[15]
On October 10, 2006 Media Matters published an article whose title asserted "''Horowitz, FrontPageMag misrepresented CREW statement on
Foley emails to suggest 'obstruction of justice'.''"
[16] Rep. Mark Foley had sent arguably inappropriate emails to an underage Congressional page (more explicit propositions to others came out later) and, after ABC News broke the story on September 28 based on other information, the
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington criticized the FBI, saying that they had both received and turned the suspicious emails over to the
FBI in July. According to the
Washington Post, "Law enforcement officials said then that the e-mails did not provide enough evidence of a possible crime to warrant a full investigation", that "unidentified Justice and FBI officials told reporters that the e-mails provided by CREW were heavily redacted" and that "the FBI believed that CREW may have received the e-mails as early as April".
[17] According to Media Matters Horowitz's October 9 FPM blog characterized the CREW claim to have turned the emails over to the FBI on the same day they received them as "holding [them] since at least July 2006" and that the blog "failed to make clear that the dispute concerns allegations made by unnamed officials -- not the agency itself.". The blog entry referred to by Media Matters is no longer available on the FPM magazine site, but the
article on this subject FPM published on October 10 does not have these failings.
Editors, columnists, and contributors
References
1. Annual report by David Horowitz Freedom Center
2. http://www.frontpagemag.com/Content/read.asp?ID=78
3. People of the Year: Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean
4. Family seeks support for border agent; Ignacio Ramos serving 11-year sentence after wounding smuggler
5. People of the Year: Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean
6. FrontPage Magazine's Man of the Year: Col. Allen B. West Ben Johnson
7. Islamophobia and the specter of neo-McCarthyism Abukar Arman
8. http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=29250
9. Into the Mainstream
10. An Open Letter To Morris Dees
11. Berlet, Chip. "Response to David Horowitz's Complaint." ''FrontPageMag''. 14 September 2003. [1]
12. http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=9830
13. Chip Berlet: Leftist Lie Factory
14. Defending Dixie
15. FrontPageMag's Laksin falsely claimed Media Matters "concede[d]" that half the professors in Horowitz's book "use their classrooms for political agendas"
16. Horowitz, FrontPageMag misrepresented CREW statement on Foley emails to suggest "obstruction of justice"
17. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/05/AR2006100501657_pf.html
18. http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/authors.asp?ID=3597
External links
★
FrontPageMag.com
★
FrontPageMagazine.com Alternate name for the same website
★
FrontPage Magazine criticism from
Media Matters for America
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