Joseph Farah's Blame Game

The WorldNetDaily editor is desperate to blame everything and everyone for his website's financial problems -- except, of course, himself and WND's editorial agenda of fake news and conspiracy theories.

By Terry Krepel
Posted 8/12/2022

Joseph Farah

In his Feb. 21 column, Farah claimed that "In 25 years, WND earned more than $150 million in revenues" -- but he didn't explain where all that money went or why it can't be used now to bolster WND's finances. He also served up a variation on his usual anti-"big tech" ranting:

America's freedom has never faced a greater threat. The Democratic Party leadership is now dominated by openly brazen socialists, extremists, the extremist left, the real "insurrectionists." The Big Media are in the tank for them as never before. And, this time, the biggest and most powerful tech monopolies in the world are censoring dissent as never before, actively destroying the independent media and plotting a putsch for a radical New World Order.

[...]

From 1997 through 2016, WND was apparently too successful.

Following the presidential election of 2016, the robber barons of Google-Facebook and company declared war on the independent media, along with free speech and dissent against their radical left-wing agenda. With control over 95% of internet searches and 85% of digital advertising, they began starving WND.

From 2017 through 2019, our revenues were slashed by 80%.

In 2021 it got much, much worse. Google PERMANENTLY DEMONITIZED WND! No kidding! Why did they attack us so ferociously? Easy – because they could. Because they blamed us for the 2016 election results. We have been the canary in coalmine. They have done everything to destroy us!

False -- WND has nobody to blame but itself. Google no longer wants to do business with WND -- and, as a private business, it's under no legal obligation to do business with anyone it doesn't want to -- because it publishes fake news and conspiracy theories, and it has continued to do so even though it's costing WND. But who needs facts when you have fearmongering? And that's exactly what Farah leans into:

Please understand what I am saying to you today. Google and Big Tech are killing us. But the goal of these radicals is much bigger than killing WND. They are aiming to rig the next election when they are facing what everyone knows would otherwise be a shellacking this November. Then they will impose draconian hammerlock control on speech that will pervade the entire internet. No more opposition, no more dissent.

In his March 1 column, Farah whined that "Big Tech controls the media – like a hammerlock, tighter than Communist China," citing as an example how every other news organization points out that there's no evidence that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump and that one website (the UK's Daily Mail, which is actually a right-wing news organization) said they were "unfounded claims." Farah huffed in response: "Unfounded claims. This is Big Tech laying down the law. It doesn't matter how much evidence is provided. There will NEVER be enough evidence provided for Big Tech."

Funny, we remember that there was never enough evidence for WND to accept that Barack Obama was an American citizen. Farah went on to play victim again:

One of Big Tech's first targets years ago, WND has been permanently demonitized and banished from Google. When did it start? When Donald Trump first ran for president! Google controls the narrative. Do you get it? Google is one of the wealthiest corporation in the world.

Big Tech doesn't have a conscience – a sense of freedom or fair play. It's the devil's tool for controlling the American people!

Google employs strict political speech codes designed to determine what is acceptable discourse in the public square – much like what we see on university and college campuses. In the case of Google, these restrictions determine which websites succeed and which fail.

Farah didn't explain why Google is not allowed to create a better search product for its users by deprecating "news" sites that publish fake news and conspiracy theories.

He concluded by sucking up to Trump yet again:

Donald Trump is an American hero for standing up and fighting such evil.

He's running for president (unofficially at this point) and leading the opposition – just the way the Ukrainian people are leading the opposition to the Russian invasion.

Trump is a liar, but sadly, Farah is too invested in his lies to admit he's been played.

Farah spread similar apocalyptic arguments in his column the next day:

We need to respond collectively and individually as if we are in a new war of independence, a new fight for liberty, a new battle for the mind, heart and soul of America.

Don't let the first domino fall, or it will start a chain reaction whose consequences will be catastrophic. Don't let WND be the first domino.

Rally around the first independent media site – not only to preserve it in this crisis, but to make it more vibrant through growth.

I'm calling for your urgent help. Speak out, support WND, support other independent voices and journalists – especially those with integrity and commitment to freedom, independence and a Judeo-Christian worldview.

Recently, Google permanently demonetized WND. I'm sure they saw it as a death blow to the 25-year-old company – the final straw.

I speak with candor and urgency. We will not sell out or just fade away.

He added: "We had to disband our line of bestselling books, WND Books – because Big Tech, of which Amazon is a part, was killing it. Quickly following it, they killed off our successful line of movies, WND Films." Farah offered no proof that the book or movie division were "killed" by "Big Tech" or even any evidence these divisions made money; as we recall, publishing the book of an anti-Semitic white nationalist had much more to do with killing the book division than anything "Big Tech" purportedly did.

The really sad thing? Farah's idea of "selling out" is to stop publishing fake news and conspiracy theories and act like a responsible news organization. Clinging to that belief would seem to all but guarantee that he and WND will fade away.

Farah was in full conspiratorial froth in his March 9 column:

You can't make this stuff up.

Never, even in my fertile imagination, would I have guessed that we would find a smoking-gun 49-page memo revealing how George Soros operatives, including David Brock, were there at the genesis, the planning stages, with their hands on the ignition key, of the most concerted, well-funded, diabolical attack on free speech in the history of America.

But here it is, so you have the evidence. It's called "Democracy Matters: Strategic Plan for Action."

Millions saw it on the DrudgeReport – including, no doubt, President Trump, Vice President Pence and Republican congressional leaders. But most Americans still know nothing of its existence – because it was not reported among the Big Media. And, today, the Big Media includes the DrudgeReport. They don't want you to know about it. They would be embarrassed if America found out how they have been used and manipulated – from their focus on "Russian collusion" to other wild conspiracy theories targeting their No. 1 villain, President Trump.

It was nothing short of a plan to turn Google, Facebook and other social media into hyper-partisan Democratic Party activists, promoters, cheerleaders and off-the-books donors in an effort to turn the country into a one-party state.

Actually, the memo didn't do any of that -- it's a fairly standard political strategy memo about how to counter the Trump administration after its victory, likely not so different from strategy memos prepared by conservative groups to counter Democratic president -- and probably not so different from memos created at WND to decide how to deceive and lie about Barack Obama. Also, Brock's Media Matters only received one donation from Soros more than a decade ago, so it's a bit of absurd for Farah to call the group a bunch of "Soros operatives."

But Farah was still in a conspiratorial mood -- which, of course, evolved into a money beg:

The strategies were – get this – impeachment, expanding Media Matters' mission to combat "government misinformation," ensuring Democratic control of the Senate in the 2018 midterm elections, filing lawsuits against the Trump administration, monetizing political advocacy, using a "digital attacker" to delegitimize Trump's presidency and damage Republicans, and partnering with Facebook to combat "fake news."

Did this diabolical strategy work? UNFAILINGLY!

Media Matters boasted then that it had "access to raw data from Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites" so they could "systemically monitor and analyze this unfiltered data."

Brock's memo also says Media Matters gave Google "the information necessary to identify 40 of the worst fake new sites" so they could be banned from Google's advertising network.

Yeah, tell me about it. Now we have Joe Biden. Russia's invading Ukraine. Gas is close to $5 a gallon, even more in some cities. Hyper inflation is near. There are 2 million new illegal aliens in the country.

Our free elections are gone. Our free press is gone. We lost them both. You can't have one without the other.

I'm not here to say I told you so. I'm here to try to equip you for the titanic effort to bring those two freedoms back.

Here's what you can do to help WND and, literally, save the nation.

Yep, he's blaming Media Matters -- and, by extension, George Soros -- for effectively running WND out of business. Never mind that if WND had committed to publishing facts and acted responsibly instead of embracing conspiracy theories and fake news, it might not be going down the tubes as we speak. But then, Farah remains in denial mode about the impending demise of WND.

(Disclosure: We used to work for Media Matters, and Farah hates us for that, among many other reasons.)

Farah cheered in his March 25 column that the Heritage Foundation declared that "Big Tech is an enemy of the American people" then ramped up his own victimhood:

I've been screaming from the rafters since 2017 about it. It caused me so much anxiety that it gave me five strokes – the last one being a major one.

It cost me so much lost revenue in that period that, from 2016 through 2022, I can conservatively estimate it at $100 million.

That's how much this news site, WND.com, been devalued, demonetized and dehumanized in the last several years.

That's what countless other conservative, Christian news sites have experienced.

But I coexisted with Google, Amazon, Facebook and the rest through most of the history of the internet – almost 20 years. Perhaps I'm a slow learner. We at WND were doing all right. We were growing. We were making a real difference. We weren't being compromised. We weren't being blackballed. We weren't being canceled.

All of that ended in 2016.

Why?

Because we took a strong stand for one presidential candidate – perhaps stronger than any stand we had ever taken: Donald J. Trump. In America, we had that right, and everyone knew it – but Google, Amazon, Facebook and the rest began denying that right. It's just that simple.

They didn't care what I said about them, like when I called Google "evil" years before. Amazon didn't smear or not order the books I published or the videos I made before 2016. Facebook didn't restrict the reach to readers we'd developed through our use of the social site before 2016.

That's because in 2016 we were playing for all the marbles – the presidency of the United States. And we won.

Farah "won" in 2016 because he didn't care about the truth. It spread bogus stories about Hillary Clinton's health, and then-WND reporter Jerome Corsi aligned himself with the phenomenally sleazy right-wing political operative Roger Stone to smear Clinton, and published other fake-news stories during and after the campaign.

In his April 1 column, Farah asserted that Google "hasn't faced any government investigations into its monopolistic trailblazing efforts" because "just pays off the government 'watchdogs'" -- a claim for which he provided no evidence. He then regurgitated his victimization narrative again:

Google controls it all.

And this is the world WND lives in and has to navigate through. We can't use Google's search engine. We're prevented from using the one and only major ad platform, Google Ad Manager. And most of the rest of the media operate in a state of constant intimidation and fear – of this TYRANT.

WND is now DEMONETIZED PERMANENTLY! That's official. You simply can't do what we do – tell the truth about the 2020 election, tell the truth about the pandemic, tell the truth about the southern border, tell the truth about the transgender agenda and so on – while Google is running the media!

WND wasn't "demonetized" by Google -- as we explained, Google made the sensible business decision to no longer associate its ad service with the unreliable, conspiratorial content of WND. As if to prove Google's decision to decouple from WND was indeed a sensible one, Farah continued spewing claims he doesn't support:

Google and Big Tech are a BEAST. It may be the No. 1 existential threat to the USA. I know it is to WND and what little is left of America's truly free press.

Google uses all of its tricks to slant the news to the left and in support of the official Joe Biden positions. It's not even funny. It's more than a 20-1 ratio in their news feed, and the more "fake" the news, the more play it gets on Google.

This column, like the other, ends in a money beg.

Such nonsensical ranting from Farah and his deputy, David Kupelian, only serve to reinforce the decision of normal business not to have anything to do with WND, and his counterfactual insistence on blaming everyone but himself for WND's current situation and absolute refusal to seek repentance for his self-inflicted wounds seems to indicate that WND does not deserve to live.

The timeline gets dire

As his June 30 deadline drew closer, Farah used his June 3 column to be selectively honest and, of course, to beg for money:

I'm generally an optimistic person, a faithful person, and I don't fully know what God has, in the short term, in mind.

This is my quandary.

So, as usual, I'm going to be very honest with you.

Because I'm human, and I believe in being honest ... and frail ... and weak.

Given Farah has been caught in numerous falsehoods, it's clear he does not actually believe in being honest, so look for this to be yet another factually dubious money beg. Continue, please:

This is a very tough message to write. I sincerely pray you will consider it.

We're in trouble. We need to raise at least $100,000 above what we anticipate receiving in revenue by the end of this month to survive. That's hard to say anytime. I feel stupid saying it. Many people reading this are in bad shape, too.

These are tough times. But I am looking confidently for a miracle because I don't think God is finished with us – everybody at WND, this company of believers of Jesus, the Messiah, that have performed good works in His name for so long.

Just to quickly cover the basics, in recent months – in addition to myriad other challenges, predatory lawsuits and other direct attacks on us – we were demonetized by Google and YouTube, completely and permanently. We're one of a handful of news sites to actually experience this because of the hateful, spiteful, anti-God, anti-decency and truly demonic Big Tech companies that you know support a different master. It means we get no revenue from them for anything we do – no advertising from the only companies that can deliver it in a substantial way.

We're not accustomed to that. We were once a company that brought in more than $15 million a year for the privilege of exposing evil in our world and for the blessing of revealing God's majesty.

Farah lied again when he praised "our loyal staff's super-dedication, professionalism and bold, courageous Christian journalism." It's not bold, courageous or Christian to lie to and misinform its readers, yet that's what WND continues to insist on doing on a seemingly daily basis.

Farah served up his usual money beg, adding, "We think our model for a new kind of Christian journalism is something exciting. But we do need your urgent support. Unfortunately, we won't make it without you."

Farah used his June 10 column to rant yet again at his perceived enemies -- once more blaming everyone but himself for WND's woes -- before getting to the more desperate money beg:

WND now is almost entirely reader-sponsored. And although we can't do everything we once did, like publishing books and movies and such, we can still bring you the most important and rarest of commodities in today's corrupt news world – we can bring you the TRUTH! Every day – as we have for the last quarter century. We can bring you the news that really and truly matters to the future of our beloved country. And that's something!

But we're dependent on YOU!

Bottom line: In order for us to keep going and not sink into a major crisis, we need to raise a minimum of $100,000 by the end of June – over-and-above our normal expenses. If you can, please support us in providing a real voice for God and country.

But WND does not "bring you the TRUTH!" We've proven that time and time again.

If Farah cannot repent for his years of journalistic misdeeds or prove that his failed business model will change in the future, WND has not earned the right to continued existence. Simple enough -- yet Farah refuses to acknowledge that inconvenient truth.