News site celebrates 19 years and counting

It was 19 years ago on Wednesday, May 4, when Joseph and Elizabeth Farah launched WND, then called WorldNetDaily. There were no Twitter, Facebook and Google announcements; the social-media sites had yet to be created. The now-powerhouse Drudge Report was only weeks old.

"Wow, how the digital landscape has changed," Farah writes in a column marking the anniversary of the launch of the independent Internet journalism pioneer.

"If you can believe it, there were about 1 million people total accessing the Internet worldwide in those days," he explains. Any news they found was from companies that recycled their products onto the Web, like television networks.

The Farahs' first indication of the demand came almost immediately.

Within 30 days, there were 10,000 daily readers of WorldNetDaily, and the curve has been upwards ever since.

"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," he writes. "It is also the No. 1 Christian content website in the world – outranking all broadcast, media and ministry sites, including the Vatican."

"In 2017, WND and the DrudgeReport will both be celebrating their 20th anniversaries as the pioneers in Internet news," pointed out Farah, the chief executive officer. "I believe these two sites touched off a media revolution that we are all still experiencing today and, furthermore, these two sites will continue to play a very positive role in the press for 20 more years."

From the beginning, WND has focused on fresh angles to stories covered by establishment media as well as issues that often are underreported or completely overlooked.

The Terri Schiavo's ordeal was one such story.

Terri Schiavo prior to her brain injury.

After a drawn-out court battle, the brain-injured Schiavo's husband obtained a court order to stop providing her with any food or water, literally starving and dehydrating her to death, even though her parents desperately wanted to take her home and care for her themselves.

See a listing of some of the most important and consequential stories WND has published over the years.

Another series featured Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, jailed for pursuing and shooting at a fleeing Mexican drug smuggler who was carrying 750 pounds of marijuana into the U.S.

The Ramos family credited WND with the agents' eventual freedom.

Then there was then-U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch's decision not to prosecute HSBC bank for money-laundering for terrorists and drug cartels.

And the shooting death by Washington, D.C., police of Miriam Carey, a mother who apparently made a wrong turn into a White House access point, then tried to back out and leave. Still unanswered questions include why she was shot in the back and what happened to officers' statements and video footage from nearby cameras.

Miriam Carey

The Council on American-Islamic Relations also has been the focal point of reports, as has the tragic death of 13-year-old Jesse Dirkhising and the dangers of psychiatric medications.

But WND has done much more than provide daily news reports.

For example, it was the:

First Internet content company to start its own digital shopping place – now called the WND Superstore;
First Internet content company to launch a book-publishing business. WND Books has, throughout its decade-plus history, boasted the highest percentage of New York Times best-sellers of any publisher in the world;
First Internet content company to launch commentary stars into national syndication, including, but not limited to: Bill O'Reilly, Chuck Norris, David Limbaugh and Joseph Farah.

WND Books introduced personalized autographed inscriptions in 2000.

Within 30 days of introducing personalized inscriptions for the book "The O'Reilly Factor," the U.S. Postal Service went from sending a standard mail truck for daily package pickups to a 52-foot tractor trailera nd delpleted all Priority Mail flat rate envelopes in a five-state area.

A letter campaign in 2009, "Send Congress a Pink Slip," that let members of Congress hear from dissatisfied voters, depleted all pink paper supplies in the nation.

WND also was the first Internet content provider to launch a movie production enterprise, WND Films, have one its books made into a feature film and secure White House and Capitol Hill credentials.

Its "The Isaiah 9:10 Judgment" was the most successful faith film of both 2012 and 2013.

Columnist Chuck Norris' endorsement of the site is unqualified.

"The fact of the matter is that the creation of WorldNetDaily has not only given the world a truthful and an alternative voice to news, but one that I believe is reflective of what our founders said and would want us to hear," he said. "WND is not a conservative voice, but the voice of patriots – an influence that is needed in our milquetoast world and constitutionally run amuck country and government.

"And at the center of it all are a bounty-hunter veteran news reporter and editor, and his wife, Joseph and Elizabeth Farah. They're independent. They don't shy away from controversy. And they're not afraid to tell the truth, despite the fallout. Since World Net Daily's inception, it has remained a free press for a free people, preserving the truth and freedom found in the 1st Amendment."

Joseph Farah said that 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," he said. "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."

And he wrote: "If I can boast for a minute, nobody else in this space brought 25 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.'"

Farah concluded: "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."

Read Joseph Farah's commentary on the anniversary.