Joseph Farah
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Joseph Farah is a conservative Christian Lebanese-American journalist with over 30 years of experience, married to Elizabeth Farah and founder of WorldNetDaily (WND), for which he writes a daily commentary.
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[edit] Biography
Farah made a name for himself in 1990 when he became editor of the Sacramento Union newspaper under the ownership of Daniel Benvenuti Jr. and David Kassis when the three turned the paper in a more conservative direction.[1] Benvenuti and Kassis bought the newspaper from billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife who was also a conservative and would eventually fund the Arkansas Project in an attempt to bring down Bill Clinton. After 15 months as editor of the Union, Farah stepped down, in part from the 30 percent decline of the paper's circulation. (The Sacramento Union was bankrupt by 1994, but became an online monthly magazine in 2004.)[1] Prior to working at the Union, he was the executive news editor of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner (now closed) and served as editor-in-chief for various California dailies and weeklies.
Farah began working with Rush Limbaugh on the book See, I Told You So, which was released in 1994. Yet, by 1997 Farah co-founded the Western Journalism Center with James H. Smith, (former publisher of The Sacramento Union and former CEO/publisher of the revived Sacramento Union webpage). This group supplied Christopher W. Ruddy (founder of NewsMax) with "additional expense money, funding for Freedom of Information Act requests, legal support and publicity during his" investigation of a Clinton conspiracy surrounding the suicide of Vince Foster.[1] In the 1994-95 course of the Center Scaife-connected foundations gave $330,000 in donations to the group.[2]( By May 1997, Farah set his eyes on the internet and set up WorldNetDaily (WND) as a project of the Center. In 1999, WorldNetDaily.com, Inc., with offices in Cave Junction, Ore. 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.[3] 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 began to profit employing 25 workers.[4] Currently the webpage has a staff of 20 people. His wife, Elizabeth Farah, also contributes to WND.
In 1996, Farah wrote a book with Richard Pombo concerning property rights.
In addition to directing the news-gathering operation at WorldNetDaily, he is also a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and nationally syndicated columnist. His radio service contains a variety of shows focusing on current affairs as well as topics on conservatism, liberalism and Christianity. However, on December 20, 2005 Farah announced he was "calling it quits on his national radio show next year" with the last day on January 13 2006. Farah said this was to spend more time with the WND website & his family [5] He is also the founder of ShopNetDaily where books on Christianity, politics and other world issues are sold.
[edit] Anti-Gay Commentary
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told the Chicago Tribune in an interview on whether gays should serve openly in the military that homosexual activity is "immoral" [18] Farah wrote in a commentary on the net: "Am I to understand that only people who see buggery as a step forward for civil rights are entitled to express their sense of morality?...It's (Sen.) John Warner who should be forced to apologize to all of us who agree 100 percent with Gen. Pace and understand exactly what he said and what he meant." [19]
Senator John W. Warner of Virginia, the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee had rebuked Gen. Pace, saying, "I respectfully but strongly disagree with the chairman’s view that homosexuality is immoral." [20]
[edit] Bias
Farah stated "We are not conservative. We are the largest independent news site on the Net"[21]. His commonly criticize Democrats[6], gays[7], Arab Islamists[8], and liberals[9] on many issues.
In his work he proclaims, "The choice is simple: The world of standards and morality, of marriage, order, the rule of law, and accountability to God? Or the world of anything-goes, aberrant sexual behavior, doing-your-own-thing lifestyles, and moral codes that change with the speed of the latest public-opinion poll?"[10] Also tied to WND is Farah's "G2 Bulletin", an online "intelligence newsletter" which focuses on world events viewed through a conservative perspective. Farah is also known for his strong support for Israel and is possibly one of the most notable and outspoken pro-Israeli Arab writers[citation needed]. He has criticized the Israeli government for negotiating too much with the Palestinians and abandoning lands which he believes were given to the Jewish people by God.
[edit] Books
- Farah, Joseph. Taking America Back. (World Net Daily Books, 2003)
- Farah, Joseph and Pombo, Richard. This Land Is Our Land: How to End the War on Private Property. (St. Martins Press, 1996)
- Farah, Joseph and Salamon, Kathleen. Seceding from the Union: Kathleen Salamon's explanation of why she left the "Sacramento Union." (Columbia Journalism Review, 1991)
- Farah, Joseph and Limbaugh, Rush See, I Told You So (Pocket Press, 1994)
- Farah, Joseph: How Islam Plays the Press, in Muhammad's Monsters, editor David Bukay.
