Topic: WorldNetDaily
In June 2016, WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah claimed that WND was "in a sizable hole" and facing an "existential threat," and he begged for money from readers. He insisted that WND readers "wanted to hear the truth," but didn't address the fact that they weren't getting it from WND.
A year and a half later, Farah is at it again, using his Jan. 8 column to assert that WND is facing another "existential threat":
There are no millionaires or billionaires supporting WND, as is the case with other top-tier alternative media organizations. We at WND have always earned our own way. The good side of that arrangement is, we’ve never been beholden to anyone other than the Good Lord.
However, these are exceedingly rough times in the news business. And right now, it pains me to tell you that many loyal WND staffers are working without salary to pull us through a crisis, an existential threat that could bring to an end the nation’s oldest independent online news-gathering company.
I’m asking you to help us in this time of need. It’s not easy to make a plea like this to you, our faithful readers, and I do so in all humility.
I’ll lay it out for you straight. We need to raise a minimum of $100,000 before Jan. 30.
I can’t go into all the details of the problems we are facing – some are global (like the major drop in ad revenues for news websites) and some are specific to WND – but I will mention one thing you probably didn’t know.
The deck is stacked against the independent media, and not just due to attacks and boycotts by the cultural elite, and lawsuits intended to silence us (like the one against us by the Muslim Brotherhood front group CAIR). It’s also more hidden things like the powerful, left-leaning Google-Facebook media complex actively and shamelessly writing algorithms with the intent of minimizing access to WND, with its pro-American, pro-Constitution, pro-biblical worldview the progressive elite find so offensive.
I’m asking for the help of those who recognize the unique role WND plays in reaching the God-fearing American audience that, like us, supports limited government, national sovereignty and the traditional Judeo-Christian values that made America truly great.
Donald Trump can’t fight this monster alone. He needs strong voices like WND’s to help him accomplish his genuinely pro-American agenda and, at the same time, “drain the swamp.” WND played a critical role in the 2016 election, and we are facing a critical election in 2018.
Please, help us to weather this storm by giving as much as you can to support us in this critical hour.
In other words: becoming a pro-Trump state-media outlet and continuing to publish fake news hasn't worked out so well for WND.
WND has sold out to Trump -- and, thus, veered away from actual journalism -- to such an extent that it created a website to thank Trump for all he has supposedly done for the country. That's something state-conbtrolled media does, not the work of an "independent online news-gathering company."
Perhaps Farah thought that being all pro-Trump all the time would draw more eyeballs and, thus, revenue -- and, perhaps, draw in one of those "millionaires or billionaires" supporting other right-wing media sites to be his moneybags. He thought wrong -- a business model that failed.
The other big problem for WND is that it has continued to fail to live up to the journalistic ideal Farah claims WND operates on. Since the last "existential threat" WND faced a year and a half ago, we have compiled five articles about WND publishing false, fake and misleading news.That's a horrible track record -- and given that Farah has done nothing to address this, perhaps reason enough that WND should die.
On top of that, WND's book division has published one author who has highly exaggerated his biography and another who is spouting white nationalist and anti-Semitic rhetoric -- serious credibility issues WND has yet to address publicly. That's also not a sign that WND deserves to live.
Perhaps instead of begging for money (again), Farah should fix the things that are wrong with WND instead of pretending his current business model isn't fatally flawed.
Instead, the begging continues. A Jan. 9 email signed by Farah sent to WND's mailing list claims that "We brought in around $20,000 in donations since yesterday, which means that after less than 24 hours, we're already 20 percent of the way to our goal of a minimum of $100,000 by Jan. 30!" The email goes on to declare that WND is "beholden to no single person – or agenda," then two paragraphs later details the agenda it's beholden to:
Speaking of "the swamp," you probably agree with me that the presidency of Donald Trump – which spared all of us the agony of a return to the White House of the Clinton crime family – offers America a chance to reverse the terrible damage done to our country during the eight years of Barack Obama and his radical left government. But Trump cannot "make America great again" all by himself. Strong, influential, trusted media voices like WND are absolutely essential.
But WND is not trusted; as we wrote five years ago when its birther-centric anti-Obama jihad proved to be an utter failure, nobody believes WND. Farah has done absolutely nothing to change that -- and this, rather than any claims of falling ad revenue or "malicious lawsuits," is the real reason why WND is facing an "existential threat" for the second time in less than two years.
Farah needs to prove to people that WND deserves to live. He hasn't really done that.
UPDATE: Farah's Jan. 10 email declares WND is "HALFWAY THERE!" to its fundraising goal, complete with a "It's A Wonderful Life" reference. Farah also declares that he and his wife "had a mission -- to seek the Truth with a capital T." As noted above, that's a lie.
