Selective Honesty At WND

Joseph Farah claims he's being honest about WorldNetDaily's seemingly perpetual financial crises -- but he's not. Farah also attacked Google for (temporarily) blocking WND due to malware on its website -- which WND ultimately admitted was true.

By Terry Krepel
Posted 11/28/2022

Joseph Farah

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 that ConWebWatch has caught Farah in numerous falsehoods, it's clear that 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 is lying again. WND was not demonetized because of "hateful, spiteful, anti-God, anti-decency and truly demonic Big Tech companies" -- it was demonetized as the direct consequences of its own action in publishing misinformation, falsehoods and conspiracy theories that no credible company wants to be associated with. Farah is once again blaming others for the consequences of his own behavior, which again demonstrates his (and WND's) fundamental dishonesty.

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 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 -- yet Farah refuses to acknowledge that inconvenient truth.

In his June 30 column, though, he abruptly declared that WND has been saved for now:

Thank you, thank you, thank you for all your support, for all your assistance and comfort, and for the generous bounty and relief granted to WND and all our staffers in the last couple of months.

God is truly answering our prayers for help in transitioning from dependence on Big Tech and the worldly ways of doing the seemingly impossible, to alternate ways of sustaining this mission for the long haul. Through your generosity, we have been given a blessed reprieve from the urgent and imminent financial crisis we have been facing.

[...]

During our recent fundraising campaign, we have raised a little over $200,000 (to be precise, $210,694.42), which has met our urgent needs and taken us out of crisis mode. In addition, we have been promised, by one particularly generous donor, another very significant contribution in the next week. Thank you all so much for your kindness and generosity in stepping up and partnering with WND in this way.

Farah said nothing about who donated to WND or the identity of the "particularly generous donor" who promised "another very significant contribution." Shouldn't Farah tell us all of this in the interest of full disclosure and transparency about where his money is coming from? Then again, it's not like he has cared about financial transparency before; he rarely discloses the names of the folks who pay for his increasingly frequent bailouts. And, as usual, he doesn't disclose exactly what all this money will be going for -- another important thing given that he has offloaded much of WND's so-called journalism to the nonprofit WND News Center. He also doesn't break down how much went to the News Center and how much went directly to the still-for-profit WND.

Farah then went all gushy:

I am now convinced beyond doubt that WND, America's first conservative, independent, Christian online journalism organization, now in its 26th year, will continue its calling of bringing you the REAL news, grounded in TRUTH, and not in deranged ideology or power politics. Certainly, there has never been an era in American history when lies were more ubiquitous and destructive, and Truth more desperately needed, than right now. So, we are energized and happy to carry on, as we have every day 24-7 since 1997, shouting the Truth from the rooftops, so to speak. HALLELUJAH!

This, of course, is all lies. Remember that WND thought Barack Obama's birth certificate was "REAL news" for eight years, and WND's record on telling the truth is, well, lacking. WND has been rabid supporters of Donald Trump for years, so its claim that it's not based in "deranged ideology or power politics" is a lie as well. And Farah's statement that "there has never been an era in American history when lies were more ubiquitous and destructive" is particularly ironic because the misinformation WND has published about COVID and its treatments have been particularly ubiquitous and destructive (in that there's a good chance a WND reader or two has died because of that).

Farah concluded by gushing some more:

We will continue to have challenges in this world. But we can and will do all that He requires of us.

Jesus said in Matthew 21:22: "And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive."

That's what I plan to do – just as Jesus said. Because I have faith in what He promised, for meeting our immediate needs.

Once again, thanks to all of you for proving out God's Word.

Meanwhile, Farah has yet to prove out God's word by asking for repentance for all the lies WND has published over the past 25 years, nor has he given any indication he will change his deceitful methods -- meaning there will be another "existential threat," and more money begs, coming sooner than later.

But just a month later, Farah was back to doing the hard-sell money beg. Farah began his Aug. 5 column by ranting about the purported death of the First Amendment:

If we can't speak and write the TRUTH, and can no longer operate freely according to the promises of our nation's Constitution, then we don't have a truly free press. And without a free press, we don't have a free country – they ALWAYS go together.

Yet there has never been an era in American history when lies were more ubiquitous and destructive, and Truth more desperately needed, than right now.

That may be true, but Farah's WND is not a place one will find it, as we keep documenting. After more dubious pontificating, Farah got down to the money beg:

Very simply, my friends, times have changed: If you value independent, fearless, truthful news and analysis in an age of radically increasing lies and deception, your partnership with us is essential.

Our current needs? We need to raise $65,000 by the end of August in order to pay our bills, including payroll. We're part way there, but have a long way to go.

Farah didn't explain why he was begging for money again so soon after declaring that his previous fund drive doubled its goal, and there was no mention of the "particularly generous donor" who had allegedly promised "another very significant contribution" to WND. But while Farah ranted about the purported death of free speech in a few subsequent columns that also included money begs, he hasn't referenced this end-of-August deadline again -- which seems strange if you're facing yet another existential crisis.

All of which makes us wonder about how badly WND really needs that money. Or perhaps money beg fatigue is setting in.

Another fight with Google

Farah's Aug. 12 column was yet another screed about Google is DEMONETIZING his WND -- which, of course, isn't true; Google has simply chosen to no longer do business with a hateful fake-news publisher like WND, as is its right as a private business. And he peddled more lies in pushing that claim:

Despite my somewhat hysterical warnings, they succeeded in their evil plot when Trump faced a challenge by a hapless opponent, Joe Biden. (Just see the documentary film "2000 Mules.")

America has not been the same place since that election. Biden followed the script well. He's turned America into a nightmare virtually overnight.

Yet, when WND reports about this nightmare reality truthfully and boldly – about the intentional foreign invasion of our country, about January 6, about the transgender youth-grooming craze, about the astonishing level of Biden family corruption involving "the Big Guy," and so on – Google calls us "dangerous." Others call us similar things – "conspiracy nuts," "wackos," "purveyors of disinformation." In truth, though, it's the fake news outfits that are doing that. That's Google-controlled news.

Managing editor David Kupelian tried to up the panic level in an Aug. 16 column accusing Google of going for a "kill shot" against WND, falsely suggesting this was a new thing. In fact, it's the "demonetization" that WND has been ranting about for months, yet Kupelian insisted this was evidence that Google is "maniacally intent on killing the WND 'David,' a small, Christian journalism operation that somehow refuses to die, despite continual attacks from all sides." Kupelian then laughably tried to frame its anti-LGBT hate as love and its COVID misinformation as somehow truthful (spoiler: it isn't):

Of course, all this pained moralizing over “hatred” and “discrimination” toward people who are military veterans, disabled, elderly and so on is idiotic. No one hates or discriminates against veterans, the disabled or the elderly. That’s camouflage. What Google really wants to protect from any criticism or opposing viewpoint is “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.” Indeed, when as a news organization WND dares to report honestly and forthrightly on the fantastically deranged transgender agenda – where beautiful American children from coast to coast are indoctrinated, seduced, groomed, recruited and enabled to “transition to a different gender” by taking puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and even undergoing double mastectomies and castration – when WND sounds the alarm over any of this, which we do daily, Google sees that as “inciting hatred” and “promoting discrimination.”

How about: We’re defending and protecting the most innocent, helpless and precious among us – the children who will make up America’s next generation? That’s not “hatred”; it sounds more like love.

There’s more. Google tells WND it does “not allow content that … promotes harmful health claims, or relates to a current major health crisis and contradicts authoritative scientific consensus.”

Translation: When we report knowledgeably and truthfully on the Biden administration’s absolutely deranged and tyrannical mismanagement of the COVID pandemic – from imposing vaccine mandates that have thrown tens of thousands of soldiers, sailors, Marines, nurses, paramedics, police, firemen and other frontline heroes (including my own son) out of work, to suppressing inexpensive, effective and readily available early outpatient treatment of COVID, to pretending “natural immunity” isn’t real even though at least 92 studies prove it’s superior to vaccine immunity, to insisting that infants and toddlers be needlessly injected with the experimental and hazardous mRNA “vaccines” – well, such reporting as ours is simply not allowed. Only the official Biden narrative – you know, the one based on massive lying, and which failed at every turn to end the pandemic, while driving up suicide, addiction, overdose deaths, depression and crime rates across the nation, and introduced a level of authoritarianism never before seen in America – is allowed.

Like Farah's column, Kupelian's piece ended with a money beg.

Farah referenced a new issue with Google in his Aug. 26 column, citing a reader letter claiming that "Google has put a Malware warning" on WND, which of course sent Farah into conspiracy mode: "It's crazier than ever just maintaining our website in 2022. Big Tech must see the handwriting on the wall as they find out most Americans understand how they're all totally trashing our First Amendment rights." He then redefined WND's lies as truth:

So, what has WND actually done during this difficult, blighted time?

We told you the truth about the 2020 election and how it was STOLEN!

We told you the truth about Anthony Fauci!

We told you the truth, every step of the way, about the COVID vaccine hoax!

We exposed the transgender grooming epidemic now sweeping America – and much more.

Even though we're the longest lasting, pioneering antidote for fake news, the harassment continues and intensifies.

With the malware claim, Kupelian finally had a new complaint against Google that he ranted about in an Aug. 30 column:

The Google “Goliath” has finally outdone itself in its campaign to completely destroy the WND “David,” the small Christian journalism operation that somehow refuses to die, despite continual attacks from all sides.

For the past week, Google has been warning everyone on the internet who tries to access WND.com via Google that the 25-year-old pioneering news website is outright dangerous to their computer!

This is no exaggeration: Reports from readers from all over confirm what WND’s staffers and independent tech team have been experiencing continually for the last week: When they try to reach WND by way of Google, clicking on the “WND: Home” link that Google provides leads not to WND.com, but to a threatening page saying: "Warning — visiting this web site may harm your computer!"

[...]

Ironically, if you click on Google’s own “Safe Browsing diagnostic page” link, you get taken to a page labeled “Safe Browsing Site Status” which clearly states: “No unsafe content found.” (See screenshot below.) This deceitful and profoundly destructive attack on WND persists day after day, despite multiple appeals to Google by WND’s tech team.

Which is a strange complaint because WND frequently complains that Google excludes WND from its searches. Kupelian included screenshot of the message but no proof from "WND’s tech team" that there was nothing wrong with the website, so he has no apparent proof that Google;s claim about the WND website is "false." He went on to copy-and-paste parts of his Google attack from his earlier column and added a money beg. Then he declared another conspiracy:

In addition to this, WND is simultaneously receiving a flood of reader reports that subscribers to WND's email news alerts are discovering that our emails are being redirected to their spam folders! Even when subscribers take the time and trouble to repeatedly designate WND's emails as legitimate and not spam, our emails continue to go to their spam folder, many have told us.

The next day, Farah wrote a column declaring that Google had been blocking WND's site for "11 days" -- even though Kupelian had written that it had been going on only "for the past week":

For some, even the live links within the news alerts are now also dead, preventing email recipients from clicking through to WND's news stories.

It seems that once Google designated WND as "harmful to your computer," the world's email providers followed Google's lead and stopped delivering our emails to subscribers – because they're "unsafe."

Google has been attacking WND for years, as long ago as 2014, attacks which continued and metastasized until late last year Google permanently demonetized us. And now this.

WND has been a critical test case for what remains of free speech and a free press in America. If they can kill us, they will come for every other Christian and conservative site on the internet.

Farah continued to play victim in his Sept. 1 column:

While the blacklisting continues now for 12 days, WND is simultaneously receiving a flood of reader reports that subscribers to WND's email news alerts are finding our emails being redirected to their spam folders! Even when subscribers take the time to designate that WND's emails are not spam, our emails continue to go to their spam folder, many have told us. For some readers, the live links to various stories on WND's news alerts are now also dead – so the recipients can't click through to read the news stories being presented.

[...]

Of course, it's not just Google. YouTube (owned by Google) has also permanently de-monetized WND's channel, Facebook has seriously suppressed our traffic for years, something Facebook's reps have even admitted to us. Amazon killed our book and movie division through monopolistic strategies too. And Microsoft calls us names on its opening page ("WorldNetDaily: Fake news website"). It's not just Big Tech; it should be called Big Bad Tech.

But we get a little livid when the biggest search engine in the world tells our readers who are trying to visit our site are turned away. Again, this latest full-bore assault on WND has being going on for 12 days.

An anonymously written "news" article that same day rebranded the site blocking as the "kill shot"-- but also that there was an actual, legitimate reason Google put the warning on the website:

WND's managing editor, David Kupelian, explained to the Gateway Pundit in an interview that early last week there was a malware issue with a new advertiser, but that WND's tech team had immediately removed the advertisement. Yet starting on about Aug. 22, the Google blocking of WND persisted for the next week and a half, despite the fact that the problem had long ago been removed, as Google's own diagnostic page confirmed.

If it were CNN's or the Washington Post's website that had such an issue, there is little doubt that Google would have resolved it immediately, Kupelian argued.

"Google demonetized WND.com a few months ago, which severely hurt our revenues, but this current attack is a genuine kill shot: Google is now warning the entire world that a respected 25-year-old independent Christian journalism site is harmful to their computer. That’s vicious," Kupelian said Wednesday.

That's right -- there was malware on WND's website, and Google did not invent the issue as a pretense to punish WND. How strange that Kupelian and Farah didn't mention the advertiser malware issue before this. Still, WND resumed its victim-playing quoting Farah as saying, without evidence, that Google doesn't like WND "because we were the first Christian news site, as well as the first independent news site of any kind."

An anonymously written Sept. 2 article repeated much of this, adding that "Kupelian appeared on several major shows, including One America News with D.C. Bureau Chief John Hines, and was also interviewed by InfoWars' Owen Shroyer, explaining to both outlets what Google has been doing." The fact that WND thinks the failing OAN and the sued-into-oblivion Infowars offer "major shows" shows the lowly state of WND these days.

Don't expect Farah and Co. to do the Christian thing by apologizing to Google for falsely maligning it -- they're not those kind of Christians. Selective honesty, remember?

WND loses Slack, too

Around the same time it created its own problems with Google, WND was having issues with another service provider who wanted nothing to do with it. An anonymously written Sept. 2 article detailed:

One day after WND got word that the blocking of its website by Google had been resolved, employees of the news site woke up to find they no longer could communicate through the company's Slack instant-messaging account.

There's been no response from Slack. The only communication is a web page stating, "This workspace has been suspended."

In June, a major non-profit that opposes illegal immigration had its Slack account canceled.

The group Federation for American Immigration Reform, or FAIR, was banned, according to a Slack spokesman, because it violated the tech company's policy forbidding incitement of hatred or violence and that the nonprofit is "affiliated with a known hate group."

"When we learn of an organization using Slack for illegal, harmful or other prohibited purposes, we conduct an investigation and take appropriate action in accordance with our policy," the spokesman told the Washington Free Beacon in June.

WND failed to mention that Slack, as a private business operating in a free-market economy, has every right to decline to do business with anyone it chooses for any reason -- particularly if it has declared that it won't do business with companies involved in "illegal, harmful or other prohibited purposes." Given WND's undeniable reputation for publishing misinformation and conspiracy theories and spreading hate, that seems reason enough for Slack to cease doing business with WND.

Indeed, the misinformation continued in this very article: "FAIR is listed by the notoriously biased, left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group, as is WND." WND loves to make this claim about itself to boost its right-wing cred-- but it's not true. The SPLC's 2012 profile of WND contains no such description, though it notes that WND promotes hate groups. There's that selective honesty again!

WND hasn't referenced the Slack suspension again since this article, so it can be assumed it's still in force and that WND has found an alternate way of communicating with its employees.