25 Interesting Things About the Good News Network

By Good News Network Sunday, January 15, 2012

Editors blog - General

1. The website GoodNewsNetwork.org went LIVE on Labor Day, 1997.
2. The biggest spike in traffic occurred on September 11, after terrorists attacked NYC and Washington, DC in 2001.
3. The second biggest spike in traffic occurred in September 2008 following the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the tanking of Wall Street.
4. I was described in a Washington Times report as a cross between Deepak Chopra and Ann Landers.
5. Colin Powell sent me a note in 1998 telling me to keep up the good work.
6. In the last decade, three of the top good news stories about the environment were thanks to the Bush Administration: They created the two largest marine preserves in the world and set tougher standards for diesel fuel.
7. In 2006, I received a donation of $800.00 by a woman named Dinah in Murphy, North Carolina.
8. I was a panelist on a BBC World Service discussion about government's potential for using good news as a way to white wash the truth.
9. For six years I published an 8-page printed newsletter for around 100 subscribers -- mostly family and friends -- which was distributed free to prisons, a juvenile detention center and homeless shelter. Download the September 11, 2001 Commemorative edition in PDF.
10. I first had the idea for a 'Good News Network' TV show in 1982, my first summer working in TV news in Washington, DC.
11. You can find all the good news stories that took place on your birthday using my ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY column on the front page.
12. GNN has only made a meager profit but has never stopped trying to prove that "Good news DOES sell". For instance, we sell "GOOD HAPPENS " designs on bumper stickers, tees, hoodies, bibs and tote bags at CafePress.com/goodnewsnetwork.
13. A survey of 687 users of the Good News Network in April, 2008 revealed that 67 percent would pay for the content.
14. After more than ten years of giving away the Website content for free, the Good News Network transitioned to a membership site on May 11, 2008.
15. 26 percent of subscription purchasers chose to voluntarily pay more than the minimum amount under our "Pay what you can afford" policy (choosing either $47.00 or $97.00, instead of the lower option of $24.00 - for the same benefits).
16. I was a stay-at-home mom when I created the website with kids ages 7, 5 and 3. Today the kids are 21, 18 and 16.
17. The Good News Network has been featured on the CBS Evening News by Katie Couric, NPR's All Things Considered, in Women's World, The Washington Post, Newsday, Whole Life Times, American Journalism Review, along with many major newspapers, and was named to Rolling Stone's Hot List in 2009. (Photo, right, appeared in Woman's World, 1997)
18. The most helpful motivation for me in starting the Network came from a series of ten lessons based on Mary Manin Morrissey's book Building Your Field of Dreams.
19. GNN retains the #1 position on Google (for searches of "good news") thanks to thousands of incoming links posted on pages around the internet over 15 years.
20. The first story ever submitted by a reader was written by my mother-in-law, about a dog saving a puppy in a drain pipe. The September 1997 story, entitled Annie to the Rescue, can still be found in our Archives.
21. CNN founder Ted Turner told me in 2006 that he thought a good news program could be successful. (Why he didn't succeed with such a segment, when they produced it early-on for CNN, remains a mystery.)
22. The site was 'Made on a Mac' since 1997.
23. We have a YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/user/goodnewsnetwork
24. We Twitter and Skype with the username, geriwc.
25. I finally secured the US trademark for "Good News Network" in 2010, thanks to a Florida Attorney who volunteered to help resubmit the claim originally denied in 2002.

(Updated in 2012 - originally published 2/22/2009)