News Stories
The investigations funded by Scaife money mostly concentrated on the Whitewater investments, which extended to a conspiracy theory surrounding the death of Vince Foster, a Clinton aide with connections to Whitewater. Christopher W. Ruddy (a freelance reporter for the Scaife-owned Pittsburgh Tribune-Review) published a series of articles claiming Clinton was behind Foster's suicide. Although Clinton was never found to have broken the law by Ken Starr, Ruddy published his book, The Strange Death of Vincent Foster, regardless. His conspiracy theories about Foster have even been dismissed by some more outspoken conservatives like Ann Coulter. The Spectator stopped receiving Scaife funding when "it ran a scathing review of a book by journalist Christopher Ruddy, a Scaife favorite who has worked for the Pittsburgh newspaper owned by the billionaire."
In late November 1997 after Jeff Corry's review of Ruddy's book was published, Reed Irvine of Accuracy in Media (who has received about $2 million from Scaife since 1977) "reported in his newsletter that Scaife had called Tyrrell to say he was cutting him off." In fact, "Tyrrell confirmed in an interview that the call occurred but said he couldn't remember details of the conversation that ended all support from the man who had been his principal benefactor for nearly 30 years."
In 1999, Joseph Farah's Western Journalism Center "placed some 50 ads reprinting Ruddy's Tribune-Review stories in the Washington Times, then repackaged the articles as a packet titled 'The Ruddy Investigation,' which sold for $12." Shortly thereafter, the Western Journalism Center "circulated a video featuring Ruddy's claims, 'Unanswered-The Death of Vincent Foster,' that was produced by author James Davidson, chairman of the National Taxpayers Union (NTU) and co-editor of the Strategic Investment newsletter."
In the late 1990s, Ruddy and Farah turned their focus to the internet with help from Scaife. Ruddy founded NewsMax and Farah started WorldNetDaily which report news from a conservative perspective. Eventually, Scaife became an investor and the third-largest stockholder of NewsMax.
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