WorldNetDaily

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Type	Online Newspaper
Format	Website

Owner	WorldNetDaily.com, Inc.
Founded	1997
Headquarters	Medford, Oregon

Website: www.worldnetdaily.com

WorldNetDaily, also known as WND, is an American conservative online news site, founded in 1997. It is currently in the top 75 News sites as listed at Alexa.^[1]

1 Foundation
2 Description
3 WND Books
4 Congressman Jim Welker controversy
5 Controversial articles
6 See also
7 References
8 External links

[edit] Foundation

WND was founded in 1997 by Joseph Farah. In 1991, after resigning as editor of the Sacramento Union, Farah co-founded the Western Journalism Center, known for its promotion of conservative causes, with James H. Smith, former publisher of the Sacramento Union.^[2] In 1994 and 1995, foundations controlled by conservative financier and former owner of the Union Richard Mellon Scaife gave $330,000 to the Center.^[3] By May 1997, Farah set his eyes on the internet and set up WorldNetDaily as a project of the Center. In 1999, WorldNetDaily.com, Inc., with offices in Cave Junction, Oregon, was incorporated in Delaware as a for-profit subsidiary of the non-profit Western Journalism Center with the backing of $4.5 million from investors.^[4] As a result, Farah and the Western Journalism Center possess the bulk of the WND stock, but the remainder is owned by about 75 private investors. In August 2001, Business Week cited Farah who claimed WND had begun to turn a profit.^[5] Currently the webpage has a staff of approximately 25 people.^[6]

[edit] Description

WorldNetDaily is a for-profit website that provides primarily conservative-oriented news and editorials, as well as publishing letters to the editor and maintaining forums and a daily poll. Besides providing articles authored by its own staff, the site links to news from other publications. The website features editorials from the site's founder, Joseph Farah and other conservative authors such as Pat Buchanan, Ann Coulter, and David Limbaugh^[7]. The site also offers products for sale in a fashion similar to its news articles, advertising these products with related news stories. Typically these are products sold by its related book service, WND Book Service, publishing house, WND Books, or its retail operation, ShopNetDaily. The site also contains advertisements for WND's printed magazine, Whistleblower, and other companies. WND also operates the G2 Bulletin, a subscription-only website described as an "intelligence resource" for "insights into geo-political and geo-strategic developments."

WorldNetDaily claims to be "the largest independent, full-service newssite in the world."^[8]. WND currently claims 8 million visitors a month to its website.^[9]. As of November 8, 2006, it is listed by Alexa as the most popular website in the "Conservatism > News and Media" category.^[10] WorldNetDaily articles are often linked by other websites, including the popular Drudge Report. Several of their articles have also resulted in controversies, with prominent examples detailed below.

[edit] WND Books

WorldNetDaily also publishes books under the name WND Books. The imprint was launched in 2002 through a partnership with Thomas Nelson Publishers (a prominent Christian publishing house) and released books by political pundits like Katherine Harris, Michael Savage, and Farah himself. The partnership with Thomas Nelson Publishing ended shortly before the 2004 election^[11]; Thomas Nelson has continued the division under the Nelson Current imprint.^[12] The WND Books imprint was subsequently published under a partnership with Cumberland House Publishing^[13] and released books by Jerome Corsi, Tom Tancredo and Ken Blackwell, among other authors. In 2007, Los Angeles-based conservative publisher World Ahead Publishing will become the publisher of WND Books.^[14]

[edit] Congressman Jim Welker controversy

In March 2006 Republican Colorado State Representative Jim Welker was criticized for forwarding a WorldNetDaily article by Jesse Lee Peterson. ^[15] Congressmen criticized Welker for uncritically sending a copy of the article by email, which included the statements "President Bush is not to blame for the rampant immorality of blacks" and accused "welfare-pampered blacks" of waiting for the federal government to save them from Hurricane Katrina. Welker stated that he did not agree with everything in the article. He said that the reason he sent it was because of its message "about society victimizing people by making them dependent on government programs."^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Controversial articles

WND has published various articles which have created controversies and criticism of the site by other media outlets. Some of these include:

[edit] 9/11 Conspiracy

WND published an article entitled "The Downing of United Airlines Flight 93"^[16]which proposed that, to defend the White House, Flight 93 had been intercepted and destroyed by a supersonic jet. It also alleged that the government had tried to cover up this information. The article stated:

"Witnesses to this low-flying jet ... told their story to journalists. Shortly thereafter, the FBI began to attack the witnesses with perhaps the most inane disinformation ever--alleging the witnesses actually observed a private jet at 34,000 ft. The FBI says the jet was asked to come down to 5000 ft. and try to find the crash site. This would require about 20 minutes to descend."^[16]

This claim was refuted by a Popular Mechanics article entitled "Debunking the 9/11 Myths":^[17]

[edit] Valerie Plame-CIA leak

WND has also published controversial claims about the Plame leak. After two and a half years after the original Plame leak, it was noted on November 5, 2005 Fox News commentator Paul E. Vallely told WND:

Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely told WorldNetDaily that Wilson mentioned Plame's status as a CIA employee over the course of at least three, possibly five, conversations in 2002 in the Fox News Channel's "green room" in Washington, D.C., as they waited to appear on air as analysts. WND reported "Vallely says, according to his recollection, Wilson mentioned his wife's job in the spring of 2002 -- more than a year before Robert Novak's July 14, 2003, column identified her, citing senior administration officials, as "an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction."^[18]

Over that weekend Vallely supposedly recalled another time Wilson allegedly shared classified information on his wife's CIA status. As noted above Vallely said he was told once in Spring 2002, but the WND on November 9, 2005 reported, "After recalling further over the weekend his contacts with Wilson, Vallely says now it was on just one occasion – the first of several conversations – that the ambassador revealed his wife's employment with the CIA and that it likely occurred some time in the late summer or early fall of 2002."^[19]

[edit] Middle East reporting

In early 2005, WND hired Aaron Klein to run a Jerusalem bureau.[1] Klein's articles have regularly promoted the causes of Israeli settlers in the West Bank and Gaza who oppose Israel's unilateral disengagement plan from those areas.[2] He has frequently written about right-wing Israeli activists tied to the far-right Kach and Kahane Chai movement without disclosing those ties.[3] When Eden Natan-Zada shot and killed four people on a bus in Gaza on August 4, 2005, he was beaten to death afterwards by a crowd that witnessed the shooting. Klein wrote an article for WND claiming that Zada was "murdered" by a "mob of Palestinians."[4] Klein has also written numerous articles critical of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.[5]

[edit] Terri Schiavo case

WorldNetDaily published numerous stories about the Terri Schiavo case. Its articles consistently promoted the accusations made by Terri Schiavo's parents and their supporters and regularly demonized Terri's husband, Michael Schiavo, and his supporters.[6] Diana Lynne, who "covered the Terri Schiavo story for three years as a reporter and news editor for WorldNetDaily,"[7] wrote a book, published by WND Books, that showed a similar bias toward Terri Schiavo's parents and against Michael Schiavo.[8]

[edit] Soy/homosexuality link claim

WorldNetDaily published an article[9] in December 2006 written by Jim Rutz of "Megashift Ministries" where he claimed an unnamed study found that eating soy at a young age increases the chance that a child will be gay. He further claimed that soy's estrogen content will "feminize" a young boy. Such claims are contradicted by research done by scientists at the University of Pennsylvania.[10]. The article was referenced by Frank Rich in a New York Times op-ed piece on December 17, 2006, describing the reaction to homosexuality in the Republican Party.[11] The progressive advocacy organization People For the American Way excoriated Rutz's claims in their online "RightWing Watch" feature, commenting "sometimes you just have to marvel at the things published by WorldNetDaily."[12]

[edit] See also

Arkansas Project The aim to discredit Bill Clinton, which was connected to Farah.
Yellow journalism WorldNetDaily has received harsh criticism for publishing articles that border on the sensationalistic and ignore political correctness.^{[citation needed]}