While WorldNetDaily soars to new heights in readership, its non-profit parent company is still reeling in the aftermath of a nine-month-long Internal Revenue Service audit and other political dirty tricks by the White House, says the company’s top executive.
The latest casualty of the severe cash-flow crisis at the Western Journalism Center are two key staffers who were laid off last week.
“We are trying to stop the bleeding caused by direct and blatant government harassment and intimidation of our center,” said Joseph Farah, WJC’s executive director and editor of WorldNetDaily. “Foundation and corporate grant money has virtually disappeared since the audit began more than a year ago. So far, it has not come back despite the fact that the IRS has closed the case and given us a clean bill of health.”
While some 20 organizations critical of the Clinton administration have also been audited, Farah points out that his group is one of the youngest and has a relatively tiny budget in comparison to the National Rifle Association, National Review, American Spectator and Heritage Foundation.
“It’s time for people to realize that, if they truly want an alternative source of news — especially investigative reporting of the kind we do — they will have to support it financially,” Farah said.
The good news, he says, is that people are responding to WorldNetDaily, the newest project of the center.
“WorldNetDaily is the fastest growing new news site on the Internet,” Farah said. “Many thousands of people are visiting everyday. They are responding very favorably to the unique news perspective and the original, hard-hitting reporting.”
Farah says he hopes that people will soon begin to respond to his urgent request to make tax-deductible contributions to the center to support the investigative reporting and WorldNetDaily.
“If half the people visiting our site would voluntarily contribute $10 a month, our financial problems would be over,” Farah said. “If they contributed significantly more, WorldNetDaily would become one of the most powerful and influential news forces on the Internet.”
Network ‘news judgment’ depends on who benefits
Tim Graham