Today is a historic milestone in the history of the first independent online news agency.
It was 19 years ago today that WND, or WorldNetDaily, as it was known back then, debuted quietly as the pioneer in independent Internet journalism.
Until that time, the only news you could find on the Net was produced by existing news organizations – newspapers, TV networks, etc., companies that recycled their news from other media to the Net.
If you can believe it, there were about 1 million people total accessing the Internet worldwide in those days.
There was no Google. There was no Facebook. There was no Twitter.
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MSNBC.com was the No. 1 star in ratings. The inspirational DrudgeReport had just started up a few months earlier.
Wow, how the digital landscape has changed.
Within one month of launch, my wife, Elizabeth, and I could see our fledgling project was taking off. Somehow, we managed to attract 10,000 regular daily readers in that time. Having spent the previous 20 years in newspapers, I knew 10,000 new readers in 30 days was pretty amazing.
Today, WND attracts about 1 million visitors a day, 6.5 million unique visitors per month and ranks among the top 350 Web properties in the U.S. for traffic and among the top 1,500 worldwide.
It is also the No. 1 Christian content website in the world – outranking all broadcast, media and ministry sites, including the Vatican.
Over the years, WND has branched out beyond the company's foundation as an online news company in the following ways:
- In 2002, WND Books was launched. It was the first publishing enterprise to be started by an digital company, and, over the years, has distinguished itself with the highest percentage of New York Times best-sellers of any book company in the world.
- In 2012, WND Films was launched with the debut of "The Isaiah 9:10 Judgment," the most successful faith film of that year and the following year and perhaps the No. 1 documentary in DVD format.
- WND was also a pioneer among content sites in the area of e-commerce, creating back in 1999 what has become known as the WND Superstore. Begun primarily as a bookstore, it now markets an eclectic collection of thousands of products from books, to movies, to preparedness products, to jewelry and more.
WND has launched a number of once-exclusive columns into national syndication, including a weekly version of this one and only daily column, Bill O'Reilly, David Limbaugh and Chuck Norris.
But what has made WND special, I believe, is our perspective – our worldview and our experience. WND's editorial policy reflects the old-fashioned notion that the principal role of the free press in a free society is to serve as a watchdog on government – to expose corruption, fraud, waste and abuse wherever and whenever it is found. It's the one that made it an instant sensation of the Internet, and it's the one that has kept it growing to the No. 1 spot in independent news and among the top 25 news sites in the U.S.
If I can boast for a minute, nobody else in the independent-news world brought 20 years of newspaper experience to the table – including years as editor in chief of major market dailies. And that's just me. My team has hundreds of years of experience in what we euphemistically call "the mainstream media."
Why is that a good thing?
While the standards of "the mainstream media" deserve questioning and scrutiny, there are some historical "codes" and "canons" established, whether or not anyone pays attention to them anymore. WND attempts to do just that – apply the best standards of traditional American journalism in the new frontier of the Wild Web.
The values that form the foundation of WND's news judgments and craft are uniquely American in origin. The birth of the free press in the world came during the American colonial period and was codified in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The framers of the Constitution saw the free press as an additional check and balance on central government power, something they saw as the pre-eminent danger to self-government and limited constitutional government. That's why the free press in America became known as "the Fourth Estate."
It is in that tradition that WND filled a void beginning in 1997. I believed that the "mainstream press" had lost its way. No longer was it an institution committed to serving primarily and most importantly as a "watchdog on government waste, fraud, abuse and corruption." And that became WND's identity and mission – to serve as an independent news agency committed to this traditional, uniquely American value.
Another unique aspect of what we have created at WND that confuses some of our most diehard readers is the notion of "balance" that we apply, not only to our news coverage, but to our commentary forum as well. No other content site in the world has a wider spectrum of ideology represented among its contributors – from the far left to the far right.
In other words, much to chagrin of some of our visitors, WND doesn't speak with one voice.
I hope you agree with me today on our 19th anniversary that we have been a positive influence on the New Media, a trailblazer and, in many ways, an antidote to both the so-called "mainstream" press as well as the sometimes standardlessness of the Wild Web frontier.
If so, I wouldn't mind you saying happy anniversary to me and to Elizabeth today as we begin our 20th year of fearless, uncompromising journalism.
Media wishing to interview Joseph Farah, please contact [email protected].
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