Fourteen Years on WordPress: The Long Road to WPS News

By Cliff Potts, CSO, and Editor-in-Chief of WPS News

Baybay City, Leyte, Philippines — Wednesday, July 15, 2026 — 3:35 a.m. PhST

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July 14 marked the 14th anniversary of the creation of the WordPress account that would eventually become the home of WPS News.

The account was started on July 14, 2012, during the early process of moving articles and other material away from Blogger and onto the WordPress platform. The project did not immediately become the publication readers know today. It developed gradually as the website, its purpose, and its audience continued to evolve.

What began as another place to preserve and publish written work eventually became West Philippine Sea News, and later WPS News: an independent publication committed to presenting news, analysis, historical context, and useful information to readers around the world.

Over those 14 years, the internet has changed dramatically. Platforms have risen and disappeared. Social-media algorithms have increasingly determined which stories people are allowed to see. Independent websites have struggled against corporate consolidation, declining attention spans, political pressure, and the growing cost of maintaining an online publication.

WPS News has nevertheless remained present.

The publication has covered the Philippines, the West Philippine Sea, international affairs, American politics, labor, public health, technology, infrastructure, history, religion, literature, and the continuing struggle against authoritarianism and fascism.

Not every year was equally active, and the publication did not always operate under the same name or with the same focus. But the underlying work continued: gathering information, preserving important stories, explaining complicated events, and placing current developments within a broader historical record.

That work has been made possible by the people who have visited the website, read its articles, shared its reporting, offered encouragement, and returned to see what had been published next.

Serving this worldwide community of readers has been a remarkable opportunity. We are grateful to everyone who has given WPS News a few minutes of their time during the past 14 years.

The purpose of the publication remains straightforward. WPS News will continue striving to present information in a form that is clear, useful, accessible, and worth preserving. It will continue examining stories that larger publications overlook, providing context that short social-media posts cannot supply, and maintaining an independent record of the period through which we are living.

Fourteen years after that first WordPress account was created, the project is still growing, still changing, and still publishing.

We look forward to the years ahead.

Thank you for reading WPS News.