Related to your post (but not the rest of the thread), I started lurking on FR in 2000 (first viewed in 1999). Didn't join until the aftermath of 9-11-2001.
I was reading World Net Daily daily before I joined (so I was still getting the "headlines" from different news sources).
I'll read a WND thread now and then but haven't surfed that site in years.
WND IMO, isn't credible, too many stories over the years have been debunked here. That's the beauty of FR. But for me, I was a newsmax junkie in the 90's. Same story. Kinda sad, isn't it?