by Judi McLeod
January 3, 2005
In 2004, Canada Free Press found major success on the World Wide Net.
Though online for more than a decade, it was May 2004 when CFP began posting daily.
This year as rated by alexa, "Canada's fastest growing independent news source" made it all the way up to the top one percent of sites on the World Wide Net.
When we started online, we were basing our stories on the printed investigative Toronto Free Press, breaking stories from the municipal realm at Toronto City Hall.
Tentatively branching out, we began to cover the international scene, writing about the United Nations, the European Union, american politics and everything in between.
Covering stories on the american presidential race, a lady called Teresa Heinz Kerry soon came to our attention. You can imagine our surprise when a Miami-based television outlet, working to prove the veracity of one of our cover stories, reported back that Heinz Kerry not only knew about our site, but also had called us "crazy".
John Kerry's wife was less than pleased with a CFP story pointing out how she, through the Tides Foundation, had hooked Fidel Castro's Cuba up to the Internet through underwater cable.
another CFP cover story revealed how Heinz Kerry had hooked the United Nations up to the Internet.
When we took a strong editorial stand against rampant Canadian anti-americanism, we received thousands of encouraging letters from Main Street americans. On that subject, one of CFP associate editor arthur Weinreb's columns made it to the Drudge Report.
CFP staffers are among the lucky few that are watching their dreams come true.
In my books, no one is more responsible for helping make those dreams come true than a guy who serves as the editor's main inspiration. His name is Christopher Ruddy and he can be found at NewsMax.com.
It's a story of inspiration I wanted to write before 2004 becomes too distant.
Surfing the Net when we began making big changes to our site, I decided that nothing could match "america's News Page". Chris Ruddy, Carl Limbacher, James Hirsen and Michael Reagan's columns held me enrapt.
NewsMax was already picking up some of our stories and columns when at one of our organizational meetings, I somewhat naively announced that my latest mission was to get us picked up not once in awhile–but consistently!
We continued to do what we always do, to provide daily, well-researched scoops. and NewsMax began to post them–consistently!
To my delight, the website began to pick up some of our columns as well, including those of Weinreb, alan Caruba and Henry Lamb.
In the beginning, the admired Chris Ruddy was, in my naivete, just a Net Name. I should not have been surprised to learn that he has an awesome reputation as a topnotch investigative journalist from the Pittsburgh print media.
So much has been written about him, but I like best what Internet giant Matt Drudge said in Vanity Fair Night Table Reading: "Ruddy, with the tenacity of a pit bull, reviews the forensic evidence in the (Vince) Foster case. Hard boiled and all wrong for the time, Ruddy is completely refreshing in his fight against authority."
CFP staffers are looking forward to 2005 as the year to take us over the top. Last year, we set what then seemed the impossible goal of catching up to Bourque.org, which we were told was the largest Canadian outlet. Not only did we catch up with them, we surpassed them by some 7,000 and are still going.
Happy New Year, Christopher Ruddy wherever you are and thank you for helping us make our dreams come true.
Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com
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