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Inside the spectacular fall of the granddaddy of right-wing conspiracy
sites
By Manuel Roig-Franzia
April 2, 2019 at 1:26 p.m. EDT
(Peter Strain/For The Washington Post)
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In the feverish heyday of the obirther movement,o 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 siteAs founder, Joseph Farah u a former newspaperman with a dense, jet- black mustache and a cloak-and-dagger mystique u 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 u a conservative Internet pioneer whoAd 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 officeusaw bigger things. Years earlier heAd 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.
Even though Farah claimed in WND columns and emails to supporters last year
to receive hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations uincluding tax- deductible contributions u some former employees and contractors have been laid off or had their deals canceled without being paid money they say they were owed. Many authors who signed on with the siteAs publishing arm, including former Republican senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, are fuming
about allegedly not receiving royalties owed to them.
Coburn recalled in an interview that he had a overy frank and disturbingo conversation last year with Farah about unpaid royalties for his 2017 book, oSmashing the D.C. Monopoly.o
oI accused him of not being honest,o Coburn said. oHe doesnAt keep his commitments. He doesnAt keep his word.o
Other authors, initially attracted to WND by the image Farah crafted for himself as a devout evangelical Christian, have groused that they paid
WNDAs pay-to-publish division thousands of dollars to have their books
printed but havenAt received the royalties they were promised or other
items, such as audio versions of their works. Their complaints, requests
for basic accounting statements and pleas for help were largely ignored, according to emails and interviews with more than a dozen authors.
Reached by phone last week, FarahAs wife, Elizabeth u the siteAs co-founder with her husband u declined to discuss the accusations in detail, but added that othe angst of a former employee does not impress me as to the
legitimacy of complaints.o
Joseph Farah, publisher WorldNetDaily, in a 2007 photo taken at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). (WENN Rights Ltd/Alamy
Stock Photo)
oItAs a he-said, she-said,o Elizabeth Farah said.
Less than two hours after she was contacted by The Washington Post, WND
posted a story saying Joseph Farah had recently suffered a serious,
previously undisclosed stroke.
Once a niche juggernaut with a devoted following and dozens of employees,
WND has undergone a dramatic transformation. The site has left behind its upscale offices in Chantilly, Va., and now operates remotely via a small
group of staffers scattered around the country. Farah wrote in a WND column
in January that most of his staff is gone.
oWe are struggling to survive,o he wrote.
For months, Farah has blamed his siteAs troubles on a supposed cabal of powerful technology companies that he believes are suppressing traffic to
WND and other conservative sites. He recently wrote that his company has
lost 80 percent of its revenue since 2017 and has stopped publishing new
books and making movies.
oThere has never been a force like the combined power of Google, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Amazon and Apple in the world before u at least not since the Tower of Babel,o Farah wrote in a column earlier this year. oIAm
talking about real acollusionA u and having nothing to do with Russia.o
(Amazon chief executive Jeffrey P. Bezos owns The Washington Post.)
But interviews and documents show an organization that existed in almost constant crisis mode, chronically late in paying its employees and vendors, and wrestling with internal allegations about questionable spending by its founders and claims they were withholding information from the companyAs
board and using company funds to support a comfortable lifestyle in the Washington suburbs.
oWhere did the hundreds of thousands of dollars raised by WND in 2018 from readers and other donors go?o said Felicia Dionisio, a longtime WND news writer and editor who ran the books division before being laid off last
year. oIt didnAt go toward author royalties, it didnAt go toward rehiring
any of the many loyal employees who were laid off, it didnAt go toward providing accurate and timely paychecks, and it didnAt go toward making
those who suffered due to cutbacks at WND whole.o
Founding 'the compound'
In the pre-Internet era, Joseph Farah was a mainstream newsman, serving as executive news editor of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, a major daily
that competed with the much larger Los Angeles Times before shuttering in 1989.
Later, as editor of the conservative Sacramento Union, he irked some
staffers by taking a pointedly antiabortion stance. He made headlines by defending a decision by the paperAs publisher to ban advertisements for
movies rated NC-17.
oNC-17 films are nothing more than X-rated films with a polite new name,o Farah told United Press International in 1990.
FarahAs tenure at the Union was less than two years. Unmoored from the executive suite, he had a fallback. He wrote punchy columns u a chain-
smoking dynamo whose colleagues marveled at how fast he could spin out
prose.
Farah was known for his promotion of the theory that deputy White House counsel Vincent Foster might have been the victim of foul play rather than suicide. He founded a nonprofit called the Western Journalism Center, then
a for-profit venture, WorldNetDaily.
FarahAs new outfit seemed to some investors like a potential moneymaking Internet play. At a time when traditional news operations were struggling
to grasp the power of the Internet, Farah was ahead of almost everyone, carving a path occupied by few others beyond Matt Drudge.
Farah, now in his mid-60s, and his wife took an unusual route to cyber- success. They leased a 250-acre ranch in a stretch of rural southern Oregon known as othe imaginary state of Jefferson,o according to FarahAs book
oStop the Presses!o They invited staffers to move there with them and
called their ranch, with its cabins converted into offices, othe compound.o The Farahs lived across the road in a log cabin.
Farah was the face of the site. In 2000, he beat the world to the story of Jane Fonda becoming a born-again Christian. HeAs since described Fonda as a owhacked-out traitoro for her anti-Vietnam War activism. He wrote in his
book that heAd served as a bodyguard for Fonda during a peace campaign tour
in 1972; in those days he, too, was a Vietnam War protester.
A few years after the Oregon move, the Farahs decided to relocate to the Washington area. It was a place he called othe belly of the beast.o
'Huge red flag'
FarahAs scoops and his siteAs Clinton bashing attracted investors who
shared his philosophy. But his spending habits, and those of his wife, were setting off alarm bells among some insiders who considered the couple
reckless and undisciplined, according to interviews and internal documents obtained by The Post.
As the firmAs 10th anniversary approached, the Farahs planned a splashy celebration. They signed a contract with the Washington Hilton in 2006 but were saddled with huge cancellation and other costs when they were unable
to generate enough interest to pull it off, according to an internal memo. Executives turned to a wealthy donor to cover the costs.
oWe needed 200,000+ to bail out the Hilton 10th Anniversary snafu,o the
memo said.
In 2008, Farah bought a book publishing firm, World Ahead Media, which took the name WND Books. In the years to come, he would also launch a filmmaking operation, complete with high-tech studios in Chantilly, and host a film festival.
oThey ran off in more than one direction,o said a shareholder and former
board member on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal company matters. oThe spending control was less than ideal.o
A change in corporate structure had stripped minority shareholders of much power, which was further concentrated in the hands of the Farahs, according
to one internal document. Some complained that Farah needed to be more transparent about how much he and the rest of his family were being paid, according to emails and interviews.
The shareholders said they wanted Farah to focus on his core business: the website, which was drawing up to 4 million unique visitors a month. ObamaAs election had given Farah the perfect foil: In 2009, the site dug in on the birther theory, publishing hundreds of a rticles pushing the notion that ObamaAs birth certificate was questionable. PolitiFact dubbed WND othe conductor of the Birther train.o
Attendees listen to speaker Joseph Farah at the National Tea Party
Convention in 2010 in Nashville. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)
Then and now, Farah has attracted well-known figures to write for the site, including Jerome Corsi, who wrote a book questioning ObamaAs eligibility to
be president and is a key witness in the special counsel probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election; and evangelical Christian leader James Dobson. His daughter, Alyssa Farah u Vice President PenceAs press secretary
u wrote for WND briefly in 2013 and 2014.
Farah cultivated a secretive persona. He refused to meet at his office for
a 2010 interview with the Los Angeles Times, only agreeing to sit down at a Starbucks in Virginia if the name of the town wasnAt given.
Inside the operation, troubles were percolating. A high-ranking executive
had been raising concerns about Elizabeth FarahAs spending on a company
credit card, citing charges made to a wine shop, a clothing store, a
cosmetics seller and a company that supplies materials for home-schooling, according to an internal memo obtained by The Post that lists each charge.
oHow are these specifically work related?o an internal April 2012 memo
states. oOptically, these types of expenses look bad, especially when the company is upside down in terms of cash flow and accounts payable.o
oHuge red flag,o the memo says.
In spring 2015, Floyd Brown, an Internet entrepreneur who served on WNDAs board, traveled to Missouri to tour the warehouse that shipped books and
other materials sold in WNDAs online store, which still sells items
including survivalist gear, such as water filtration straws and oRussian
gas masks.o
He found pallets of unsold materials.
oInventory is a stone around your neck,o Brown wrote in an email to a top
WND executive. oYou need to increase your writedowns so the board actually knows how that division is doing.o
When Joseph Farah found out about the trip, he sent an email to the company executive who arranged it, accusing him of an oinexcusable breach of confidence.o
oThere is nothing materially new in the condition of the companyAs finances that would require alerting the board,o Farah wrote. oWe have been consistently behind on payables and obligations for years.o
Brown confirmed the substance of the exchange with Farah but added, oI have the greatest respect and admiration for Joseph Farah and what he has done
at WND.com.o
'It's been a downhill ride'
In early 2017, an email landed in the inbox of the husband of a stay-at-
home mother of three in Wisconsin.
It was just what Diane Anthony thought she needed.
SheAd been working on a novel titled oSupernovao about a worldwide calamity that killed hordes of people but gave superpowers to the survivors. The
email offered a deal: World Ahead Press, a publishing arm of WND, would publish her book for a fee, promote it for her and give her a share of
sales proceeds.
Anthony sifted through the different publishing options, each with a
different price tag attached.
oWe thought that if weAre helping our fellow Christians, that seems like a good road to go down,o she said in a recent interview. oWe went for the
most expensive package.o
It cost $9,999.
At points scattered across the country, others reached the same conclusion: They could trust WND because of its Christian values. In Florida, Patricia Feijo dug into her dwindling savings for $9,999 to tell her version of her husbandAs imprisonment for promoting unapproved cancer treatments through their ministry, Daniel Chapter One, in a book titled oCalled to Stand: How
a Small Christian Ministry Courageously Stood Up to Government Tyranny.o
In Virginia, Rita Dunaway u a lawyer who contributed columns to WND u
struck a more traditional publishing deal, in which she would receive royalties but not have to pay for publication.
Each of the women would have their expectations shattered. Calls and emails went unreturned. Anthony and Feijo said they hadnAt gotten audiobooks
theyAd been promised. Dunaway felt she was getting excuses about the months-long delay in publishing her book.
By January 2018, they got a clearer picture of what was happening. Joseph Farah wrote a column outlining WNDAs financial woes and saying his company faced an oexistential threat.o
oIt pains me to tell you that many loyal WND staffers are working without salary to pull us through a crisis,o he wrote. oIAm asking for the help of those who recognize the unique role WND plays in reaching the God-fearing audience that, like us, supports limited government, national sovereignty
and the traditional Judeo-Christian values that made America truly great.o Within a few days of his January call for help, he announced that heAd
raised $100,000. By March heAd announced that $200,000 had been raised in a column headlined oMission accomplished! Operation aSave WNDA successful.o
But before the month was out, payroll was late again, according to an email Farah sent to staff. His wife notified the staff that dental and vision insurance had been cut off. As the crisis worsened, Dunaway found another publisher for her book oRestoring AmericaAs Soul: Advancing Timeless Conservative Principles in a Wayward Culture.o But not before telling Farah
by email that oI really am at a loss to understand this kind of treatment
at the hands of someone I considered to be a brother in Christ.o
WND had a variety of publishing arrangements. Some of the better-known
figures such as Coburn did not pay to have their books printed. Instead,
they were promised royalties and in some cases received advances, according
to internal documents and interviews. Coburn, who says his contract called
for royalties but no advance, worked out a deal in which WND sent him
copies of his book in lieu of royalties that he said he was owed.
oItAs been a downhill ride ever since it was published,o Coburn said. oEverybody seems to have problems with them.o
'We're in crazytown now'
While his company was reeling, Farah kept coming up with new plans to
salvage it. In late 2018, he became entranced with bitcoin, the digital currency.
In a staff meeting, according to Dionisio and another person who
participated, Farah outlined his plans to offer bitcoin to the public in return for donations, and he suggested that employees get in on the deal.
oWe couldnAt believe that here we were waiting for our paychecks and here
he is asking us to buy bitcoin,o Dionisio said. oWe were like, aOh my gosh, weAre in crazytown now.A o
Bitcoin couldnAt save WND, either.
This month, Farah was once again asking for money and railing against the
tech companies he blames for his siteAs troubles.



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