Word 2.0

The Word Network's blogad on left-leaning blogs no longer carries a photo of Dr. Martin Luther King Jnr. or a quote from Dr. King. It now contains a faux caption from its lawsuit against Sirius Satellite Network. The ad on wingnut blogs remains the same. Interesting.

One wonders how apt the comparison between Doctor King and the Word Network is in light of this article, which originally appeared in the Wall Street Journal and was reprinted in the San Francisco Chronicle in November 2003. Among the allegations made in the article:

• The Adells, the white, majority-ownership owners of The Word Network, promised African-American clergy ownership interests in the corporation and failed to deliver those interests. The clergymen sued and the matter was settled out of court.
• The Word Network, a non-profit, tax exempt corporation, pays to another Adell corporation the lesser of 95 percent of the network's programming revenues or the other corporation's costs (including salaries and legal fees) related to tranmitting the network to DirecTV.

• The network sells the time to the religious broadcasters who appear on the network (which would explain the slots for the phony faith healers).

• One of the Adells improperly attempted to force the company which built his home into involuntary bankruptcy; the company was awarded $6.4 million in damages, apparently including punitive damages, against Adell for a wrongful involuntary bankruptcy filing.

The article's nearly two years old and I don't know what's happened in the corporation in the interim. And, of course, I've got no independent verification of the accuracy of the article's reporting. If we credit the article, however, the Word Network (or its owners) seems more profit-driven than prophet-driven.