World news is the area of journalism that focuses on international events and politics. In addition to global affairs, this can include regional and national issues such as weather and sports. A major subfield of this type of reporting is war journalism, which can be either local for a country’s media (as in the case of an unpopular or violent military action) or global for news agencies such as Reuters, AFP and the Associated Press. Reporters who cover foreign news are often referred to as stringers, since they have no permanent employment contract with any one news organization and may be hired by several at once.

Other popular WWN topics included rumors of alien abductions, Bigfoot and other cryptids, and predictions of oncoming depressions or apocalypses. The tabloid also ran stories about supposedly real extraterrestrial creatures such as P’lod, a half-bat/half-human discovered in West Virginia caves, and the infamous Bat Boy, whose image appeared on numerous WWN covers.

At the time of its peak circulation, WWN was printed in black and white. The newspaper was founded by Generoso Pope Jr., a former staffer of sister tabloid The National Enquirer. Eddie Clontz was editor-in-chief until he left the paper in 1989 to work on other projects. In the 1990s, WWN was acquired by American Media, which merged it with its other news magazine Sun. The resulting publication continued to publish under the WWN name until it ceased print publication in 2007. The name was later revived for a series of online-only editions.