Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Inside the spectacular fall of the granddaddy of right-wing conspiracy sites (WND)
WaPo ^ | April 2, 2019 | Manuel Roig-Franzia

Posted on 04/03/2019 11:30:29 AM PDT by Seizethecarp

In the feverish heyday of the “birther movement,” conspiracy-hungry readers swarmed to a website called WorldNetDaily for the latest on the specious yet viral theory that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States.

The site’s founder, Joseph Farah — a former newspaperman with a dense, jet-black mustache and a cloak-and-dagger mystique — boasted in 2010 that he was well on the way to generating $10 million a year in revenue. His Northern Virginia-headquartered news site, known by the acronym WND, was having its moment by stoking rumors about Obama.

But Farah — a conservative Internet pioneer who’d once been labeled by the Clinton White House as part of a right-wing media conspiracy and was known to sport a pistol on his hip in the office—saw bigger things. Years earlier he’d launched one of the first large-scale digital newsgathering operations; now he wanted to be a player in Christian-themed movies and book publishing, churning out titles by big-name conservatives, such as anti-feminist Phyllis Schlafly and future House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.).

He was building an empire.

A decade later, that realm is being sucked into a tornado of unpaid bills, pink-slipped employees, chaotic accounting, declining revenue and diminishing readership, according to interviews with more than 25 former employees, shareholders, company insiders and authors associated with the firm's flailing publishing units, as well as a review of hundreds of internal documents, including emails and financial statements obtained by The Washington Post.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: barackobama; birthcertificate; california; devinnunes; districtofcolumbia; dnctalkingpoint; dnctalkingpoints; farah; farahhealth; farahstroke; jeffbezos; joefarah; josephfarah; manuelroigfranzia; mediawingofthednc; naturalborncitizen; partisanmediashills; phyllisschlafly; presstitutes; rachelmadcow; rachelmaddow; smearmachine; thatsamanman; twitter; vrwc; washingtoncompost; washingtonpost; weirdnutdaily; wnd; worldnetdaily
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-58 next last
To: Vendome

I found the nickname Wing Nut Daily to be appropriate.


21 posted on 04/03/2019 11:58:47 AM PDT by sparklite2 (Don't mind me. I'm just a contrarian.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: DesertRhino

Yeah.

They obviously had something waiting for such a circumstance.


22 posted on 04/03/2019 12:00:02 PM PDT by ifinnegan (Democrats kill babies and harvest their organs to sell)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: Lurkinanloomin

The upshot of all this is that practically speaking anyone on earth who has attained the age of 35(well, that seems to hold still but who knows now?) is eligible to be President of the United States. Perhaps it is time for the UN to manage our elections and do them worldwide. A number of leftists have said that the whole world should vote for the American President as he becomes the most influential and powerful person in the world. We have taken a step in that direction with the acceptance of foreigners and near foreigners as candidate and president.


23 posted on 04/03/2019 12:07:34 PM PDT by arthurus (ghj)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Seizethecarp
FULL, UNREDACTED MUELLER REPORT
24 posted on 04/03/2019 12:09:40 PM PDT by Dick Bachert
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Seizethecarp

He calls out WND now after years to hateful lies from his paper and others? What was that Jesus said...

Matthew 7:3-4 3”Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?


25 posted on 04/03/2019 12:11:57 PM PDT by Linda Frances (Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Seizethecarp
"that realm is being sucked into a tornado of unpaid bills, pink-slipped employees, chaotic accounting, declining revenue and diminishing readership

When I read that I assumed they were talking about the Washington Post before Bezos bailed them out.
26 posted on 04/03/2019 12:12:21 PM PDT by KamperKen
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Seizethecarp

The one story I always remember from WND is the slow-motion icbm supposedly launched from a Chinese (?) sub off the coast of California. I think the helicopter pilot who recorded it said he filmed it for 20+ minutes or something. There was a huuuuge debate on FR about whether it was actually a missile launch that was extremely slow or just a jet contrail recorded head on for 20 minutes.

Freegards


27 posted on 04/03/2019 12:15:12 PM PDT by Ransomed
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Seizethecarp

Oh, I look forward to the day when the WaPo is gone. They really deserve to go out of business. 100% lies 24/7 for many many years.


28 posted on 04/03/2019 12:18:27 PM PDT by Texas Fossil ((Texas is not where you were born, but a Free State of Heart, Mind & Attitude!))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: sparklite2

I am also a wing nut. A certrtwingnut as my screen name is proud to show.


29 posted on 04/03/2019 12:22:04 PM PDT by certrtwngnut (4- Do something,,,,even if it's wrong.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]

To: Seizethecarp

Trust the compost to schadenfreude all over the place....

“...the specious yet viral theory...” Not proved specious, but that would be too much for the washington pile of rotting food and plant matter.

“...and was known to sport a pistol on his hip in the office—...” Legal in Virginia, and an obvious pearl-clutch on the part of the fertilizer rag.

It may not have had legs and there may have been shenanigans (no inside info), but WND was part of a healthy breakfast including juice, toast, FNC, Drudge, Breitbart and Free Republic. Before that one relied on Little Green Footballs, PJM, and others.

Sorry the dream may not have come true. If wikipoopia states they were known for promoting falsehoods, the “what-I-Know-is(wiki) folks may be proving the negative (not to be trusted?).

KYPD


30 posted on 04/03/2019 12:22:05 PM PDT by petro45acp (Who is John Gantt? MBA nonsense that causes any efficient endeavour to bloat with "dependencies")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Lurkinanloomin
"The truth of the Kenyanesian Usurpation will never see the light of day because both parties cooperated in the violation of the Constitution"

No. You and all the other Birthers are just wrong. Doesn't matter how many times you post this nonsense.

31 posted on 04/03/2019 12:23:25 PM PDT by mlo
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: mlo

Wow.


32 posted on 04/03/2019 12:28:54 PM PDT by PghBaldy (12/14 - 930am -rampage begins... 12/15 - 1030am - Obama's advance team scouts photo-op locations.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 31 | View Replies]

To: caver

What’s awesome about The Washingsnot Pest is that their paywall makes them a fifth wheel in today’s media market.


33 posted on 04/03/2019 12:29:06 PM PDT by an amused spectator (Mitt Romney, Chuck Schumer's p*ssboy)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: Seizethecarp

Fake News. Bezos runs it.


34 posted on 04/03/2019 12:41:05 PM PDT by RoadieFan
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: an amused spectator

Bezos bought them to get and keep DC politicians under his thumb—it is just that simple.

WaPo reporters are so dumb they don’t realize they are just hookers with pulitzer prizes.


35 posted on 04/03/2019 12:41:25 PM PDT by cgbg (Democracy dies in darkness when Bezos bans books.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 33 | View Replies]

To: Lurkinanloomin

All of that may be true as regards Obama, but it is folly to apply such standards to otherwise viable conservatives like Don Jr. Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds. .


36 posted on 04/03/2019 12:47:49 PM PDT by Lisbon1940 (No full-term Governors (at the time of election!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: sparklite2

Joe Farah is a fearless journalist. If all journalists were as good as Farah, I doubt we would have today’s swamp. WND was the ONLY news organization that covered the significant developments in my federal Freedom of Information Act lawsuit (1997-2004) regarding photographs taken in connection with the investigation of the death of Clinton’s Deputy White House Counsel Vincent Foster. Information about that lawsuit is here: http://www.allanfavish.com/index.php/vincent-foster


37 posted on 04/03/2019 12:54:19 PM PDT by AJFavish (www.allanfavish.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]

To: AJFavish

Thank you, Mr. Favish. I remember listening to you on the radio, but can’t remember if it was Ray Briem’s late night program or George Putnams show. Those guys were so good.


38 posted on 04/03/2019 1:02:37 PM PDT by JohnnyP (Thinking is hard work (I stole that from Rush).)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 37 | View Replies]

To: Lisbon1940

What other parts of the Constitution does your great mind think we can do without.....?


39 posted on 04/03/2019 1:07:56 PM PDT by Lurkinanloomin (Natural Born Citizen Means Born Here Of Citizen Parents_Know Islam, No Peace-No Islam, Know Peace)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 36 | View Replies]

To: mlo

“You and all the other Birthers are just wrong.”

So, the Nairobi Kid’s father was an American citizen?

Who was it?


40 posted on 04/03/2019 1:37:19 PM PDT by dsc (Our system of government cannot survive one-party control of communications.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 31 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-58 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson