How many watched Arpaio press conference?

WASHINGTON – How many different people watched the live-stream telecast of Sheriff Joe Arpaio's press conference last week about his investigation into questions surrounding Barack Obama's constitutional eligibility for office?

It turns out there were more people watching the live debut of WND TV than any previous news event live-streamed on the Net.

A total of 72,076 unique viewers watched the stream of the 90-minute press conference from Phoenix in which Arpaio charged Obama's birth certificate, released last spring and posted on the White House website, is "fraudulent" and a "forgery."

That number, of course, does not include the hundreds of thousands who have since watched the recording of the video.

"I expected this to be a big event," said Joseph Farah, founder of WND. "But the final numbers surprised even me. It demonstrates clearly that the Big Media in this country are really not serving the American people very well. Despite all the cable channels, the broadcast networks, the satellite TV and the fledgling Internet television experiments, there are still lots of people not being served with what they consider to be vital information – information deliberately withheld from them."

Farah said he is encouraged with the experiment and plans to seek out other opportunities for live-streaming little-covered news events and greatly expanding video coverage of the news in general.

Meanwhile, Arpaio's investigation continues – now as the first bona fide law-enforcement investigation of Obama's eligibility with subpoena power.

"I would personally urge everyone who still considers the Constitution the law of the land to make a financial contribution to that effort now," said Farah.