Happy birthday! WND 12 years old

WASHINGTON -- It seems like yesterday to the founders of WND.

Joseph and Elizabeth Farah launched the first edition of WorldNetDaily.com the first week of May in 1997.

That makes WorldNetDaily not only the largest independent source of news on the Internet, but also the oldest at 12.

WND turns 12 years old this week.

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WND began with the vision of its founders to create an Internet news source that would employ the highest standards and practices of the traditional American press in the world of the New Media.

That commitment is still reflected a dozen years later in WND's mission statement: "WorldNetDaily.com Inc. is an independent news company dedicated to uncompromising journalism, seeking truth and justice and revitalizing the role of the free press as a guardian of liberty. We remain faithful to the traditional and central role of a free press in a free society – as a light exposing wrongdoing, corruption and abuse of power.

"We also seek to stimulate a free-and-open debate about the great moral and political ideas facing the world and to promote freedom and self-government by encouraging personal virtue and good character."

The ambitious undertaking was inspired by Joseph Farah's 25-year career in the newspaper business – a career that provided him with the opportunity to experience virtually every job one can do in that industry.

Farah began his career while still in college, "stringing" for daily newspapers as a means of supporting his education. He also served as editor of his award-winning college paper. After graduating from William Paterson University in 1977 with a B.A. in communication arts, he landed a job as a reporter and editor for a group of weekly newspapers in northern New Jersey. In 1978, he got his first job as a reporter for a daily newspaper in his hometown of Paterson, N.J.

A year later, he was hired by the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, then the third largest paper in California, with a circulation of nearly 300,000. He was promoted over the next five years to assistant news editor, news editor, Sunday editor and, eventually, executive news editor – also getting a chance to cover local, national and foreign stories as a correspondent for the Hearst Newspapers.

In 1987, Farah got his first opportunity to serve as editor in chief of a daily newspaper in Glendale, Calif. For the next two years, he ran the News-Press and a small chain of suburban weeklies with a combined circulation of 250,000.

In 1990, Farah was recruited to be editor of the historic Sacramento Union, the oldest daily west of the Mississippi and the first newspaper to hire Mark Twain – then known as Samuel Clemens. Among its other notable alumni were Bret Harte and Herb Caen.

It was during his time in northern California that Farah became fascinated with new technologies emerging in the Silicon Valley during the pre-Internet era.

"My work in competitive newspaper markets had left me frustrated with the inherent inefficiency of delivery methods, the high cost of newsprint and the growing dominance of a few monopoly media corporations strangling out alternative voices," he said. "The idea of an 'electronic newspaper' – one that could eliminate the heavy machinery and expensive supplies needed to be in the daily print world – was increasingly exciting to me. I had seen the future of news long before the Internet came along."

Inspired by the success of the DrudgeReport, the Farahs decided in the spring of 1997 the time to act had arrived. After experiments with less-ambitious websites that didn't require daily updates, WorldNetDaily was launched, without fanfare, May 4, 1997.

The news site quickly emerged as one of the most popular in the world – voted so, in fact, every week for nearly two years running between 1999 and 2001 on the independent, European-based Global100.com.

Since then, WND – as it is becoming known to its 6 million unique visitors – has broken some of the biggest, most significant and most notable investigative and enterprising stories in recent years. (See "WND Scoops" for a comprehensive list of major WND exclusive reports that first saw the light of day in these pages.)

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 and other powerful institutions – to expose corruption, fraud, waste and abuse wherever and whenever it is found.

Today, WND is ranked by Alexa.com as the No. 1 "conservative" website in the world – even though the founders expressly reject the label.

"Since I do not consider myself a 'conservative,' it is hard for me to accept what I see as a misperception or mischaracterization of WND," said Farah. "However, I'm hardly averse to being No. 1 in any category."

WND is also among the top Internet destinations for political coverage and has topped all others in the presidential election years of 2008, 2004 and 2000.

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