History

Founded in 1997, World Net Daily or WND is a politically conservative news and opinion website. WND was founded by Joseph Farah, who also serves as editor-in-chief. WND also publishes books under the imprint WND Books.

Read our profile on the United States government and media.

Funded by / Ownership

WND is owned by WorldNetDaily.com, Inc. and is funded through online advertising, book publishing, and an online store that sells conservative-related merchandise.

Analysis / Bias

Based on reviews by all of our researchers, WND is a Questionable online news source that has a far-right bias and dabbles in right-wing conspiracies such as President Obama’s birth certificate. They also use misleading clickbait headlines that do not always match the article’s content (See M. Allen’s review below). WND also has an abysmal track record with fact-checkers:

• “California To Register Illegal Aliens To Vote – Automatically.” – Pants on Fire
• “A U.S. Government Accountability Office report says Planned Parenthood Federation of America cannot find some $1.3 billion given to it by the federal government from 2002 through 2008.” – Pants on fire
• White House spokesman Robert Gibbs “lied” when he said President Obama’s birth certificate is posted on the Internet. – False
• Chobani CEO Hamdi Ulukaya vowed to “drown the United States in Muslims” and is “importing them to Idaho 300 at a time to work in his factory.” – Mostly False
• Elena Kagan Tied to Obama’s Birth Certificate – False
• A town in New Jersey has forbidden residents from criticizing Muslims or Islam in keeping with sharia law. – Mostly False
• In early 2019, vandals targeted 12 churches in France over seven days. – Mostly False
• “1 million COVID-vaccine injuries now reported on CDC’s database,” – False
• Arctic sea ice reached a 30-year high in May 2022 – False

During the CoronaVirus outbreak of 2020, WND has been accused of peddling false and misleading information regarding the virus.

Several different media outlets have criticized WND for both promotion of white nationalism and peddling conspiracy theories. For example, the Washington Post and Columbia Journalism Review have written articles describing WND as Far Right and Alt-Right. Further, The Southern Poverty Law Center labels WorldNetDaily as an antigovernment extremist group. (D. Van Zandt 6/19/2016) Updated (12/16/2018). Below are the detailed reviews of each researcher.

WND is deceptive in that its news articles appear moderate and not overly sensational. However, Snopes has slammed them on many an occasion for parsing facts and using inaccurate data. In my opinion, this site, concerning news, is pretty deceiving as their outward appearances seem well-balanced (scam ads notwithstanding). When you take a look at their Opinion page, their true colors are more evident. This is not a reliable site by any measure for news, and the rest of the site is pretty much a rag. (F. Locke Siewert (2/25/2017)

WND is a decidedly right-biased site that does carry some center and slightly left content. This is through linking to reports from less biased sources—for example, Black students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The actual article is a fairly well-balanced look at the issue by Todd Richmond of the Associated Press. The lead-in line WND used for the article was somewhat misleading, however. Using white supremacists in quotes seems to imply that it isn’t a factor in the student’s demands when it is. Where the real bias on the site is evident is on the editorial pages and staff-generated articles. Although mixed factual, the wording is heavily weighted and misleading. Carrying some moderate content is not enough, balanced against the editorial stance, to rate WND anything other than right biased and Questionable. (D. Kelley 2/25/2017)

WND is far-right/alt-right. This story just came out.  Direct quote “The story, nevertheless, was issued by the AP, which explained it obtained an 11-page document that “calls for the unprecedented militarization of immigration enforcement as far north as Portland, Oregon, and as far east as New Orleans, Louisiana.”

The issue here is it doesn’t link to the source but another news outlet that uses the source that then links to the source there.  This is something you might find in a typical badly cited essay in college.  Always cite sources when referencing material.

The second issue in the article – “On Thursday, activists protesting Trump’s effort to enforce immigration law carried out a “Day Without Immigrants” protest in which immigrants were to stay home from work or school.

In Denver, some parents left work to take lunch to their children in public schools when the lunchroom workers took part in the protest.”

This is minor, but it shows a significant downplay of how widespread and national the “Day Without Immigrants” was. It shows clear bias in how they view said protest when you marginalize like this. A better solution is to not reference it at all to limit bias in reporting.

Screen capture of their headlines as of 2/17/2017

We can see what they want to show the viewer first and what bias may or may not exist here in these headlines.

Firstly the “PUNKED! Congresswoman Falls For ‘Russian Hacking’ Prank” article is the same one seen on every right-leaning website out there, but not picked up by Fox or even Breitbart as of yet.  It links only to a Youtube channel. The same group of Russian “Pranksters” also called Sen. McCain.  If anybody in this country has ever tried to call a US Rep or US Senator should know, you’ll be lucky to speak to any humans.

This article is biased against liberals; however, it is sourced accurately, and the quotes are accurate.  Again I take issue with them citing a questionable source like Breitbart which is just citing the actual study, which they should link directly to.

This image shows the Breitbart link but fails to direct link to the study – the site goes on to deride the lack of teaching US History in history course work throughout many “elite” colleges around the country. Ironically, they fail to follow a standard referencing practice you might learn at one of those citing primary sources only.

This article links to the Washington Times.  This particular article is decent in its reporting. A study was done; now, in the Washington Times, they reference other entities that decry said report about the illegal registrations. The ODC poll was used in conjunction with a separate poll by The National Hispanic Survey.  As per the article: “Inside the poll is a page devoted to voter profiles. Of the randomly selected sample of 800 Hispanics, 56 percent, or 448, said they were non-citizens, and of those, 13 percent said they were registered to vote. The 448 would presumably be a mix of illegal immigrants and non-citizens who are in the U.S. legally, such as visa holders or permanent residents”. As one can see from this, their use of the poll is a tiny sample set to gauge a very broad accusation.  However, this is just reporting what is being talked about and not make assumptions either way.  It could be argued either way that the poll is bad science or not. The most current narrative, especially from those of the right, finds polls unreliable and bad predictors. So referencing a poll conducted in 2013 and conjunction with a separate poll using different methods and then trying to make those 2 studies and polls work is dubious at best. However, ODC and George Mason are both well-respected schools. The issue of this article is the clickbait – “VOTER FRAUD” title.  There’s no actual case of voter fraud; there’s a case of possible voter registration errors, a felony but not a fraud. (M. Allen 2/25/2017)

Overall, we rate WND Questionable based on extreme right-wing bias, promotion of conspiracy theories, and numerous failed fact checks. (D. Van Zandt 12/16/2018) Updated (01/06/2022)

Source: https://www.wnd.com/