WorldNetDaily rose to fame promoting birtherism. Now it’s collapsing, leaving a trail of disgruntled staff and book deals gone bad.
By Manuel Roig-Franzia Manuel Roig-Franzia Feature reporter Email Bio Follow April 2 at 1:26 PM 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.
Coburn recalled in an interview that he had a “very frank and disturbing” conversation last year with Farah about unpaid royalties for his 2017 book, “Smashing the D.C. Monopoly.” Joseph Farah, publisher WorldNetDaily, in a 2007 photo taken at the Conservative Political Action Conference . “It’s a he-said, she-said,” Elizabeth Farah said.
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 company’s board and using company funds to support a comfortable lifestyle in the Washington suburbs.
“NC-17 films are nothing more than X-rated films with a polite new name,” Farah told United Press International in 1990. Farah 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 “the imaginary state of Jefferson,” according to Farah’s book “Stop the Presses!” They invited staffers to move there with them, and called their ranch, with its cabins converted into offices, “the compound.” The Farahs lived across the road in a log cabin.
As the firm’s 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 offf, according to an internal memo. Executives turned to a wealthy donor to cover the costs.In 2008, Farah bought a book publishing firm, World Ahead Press, which took the name WND Books.
Attendees listen to speaker Joseph Farah at the National Tea Party Convention in 2010 in Nashville. Then and now, Farah has attracted well-known figures to write for the site, including Jerome Corsi, who wrote a book questioning Obama’s 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.
When Joseph Farah found out about the trip, he sent an email to the company executive who arranged it, accusing him of an “inexcusable breach of confidence.” In Virginia, Rita Dunaway — an attorney who contributed columns to WND — struck a more traditional publishing deal, in which she would receive royalties but not have to pay for publication.
Within a few days of his January call for help, he announced that he’d raised $100,000. By March he’d announced that $200,000 had been raised in a column headlined “Mission accomplished! Operation ‘Save WND’ successful.”
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