The maintainers of this website have not abdicted their responsibility. Our goal is to provide a forum for the open exchange of information, coming from sources in the community. The veracity of these claims is always somewhat in question, just as a wealth of articles on this site should lead you to believe that even the "fact-checked" claims of the mainstream media should be as well.

One of the goals of the Indymedia movement is not only to provide alternative news coverage, but to encourage people to actively engage in media criticism -- to read the news with a critical eye. The notion that news "consumers" should have blind faith in the veracity of what's being reported is exactly how the media are used, repeatedly, by governments and corporations to manipulate public opinion.

I personally don't agree to the particular phrase "Turns out there is no such 'pastor,' and, by extension, no such person." -- I suspect that the Archbishop selected his words carefully when he stated that Joseph "is not a pastor" (he is always described as a "missionary", which may well be a self-imposed title).

Nonetheless, the issues raised by this controversy -- users attempting to locate and verify the information being fed to them -- means that this site is accomplishing at least part of its goal.

Please note that the "Open Publishing" newswire is provided by visitors to this site, not the Baltimore IMC. The center-column "Feature" articles are, however, produced by Baltimore IMC editors, and checked for facts as much as is feasible, just as one would expect of a news organization.