Award-Winning Christian Journalist, Assist News Founder Dan Wooding Dies at 80

Assist News founder Dan Wooding died Wednesday morning, March 18, according to a Facebook post shared by Hallmark’s When Calls the Heart executive producer Brian Bird. He was 80 years old.

“This is Dan Wooding’s sons Peter Wooding and Andrew Wooding to share the sad news that our father Dan Wooding peacefully passed away at 9am UK time this morning,” they wrote. “He has left a remarkable legacy to us as a family and to the Christian media community as a true journalistic/missions pioneer who founded Assist News Service.”

Wooding was an award-winning Christian journalist. He was born in Nigeria to British missionary parents, Alfred and Anne Wooding. He lived in the U.K. with Norma and had two sons and six grandchildren.

He wrote several popular Christian books, including Brother Andrew, Uganda Holocaust, Caped Crusader Rick Wakeman in the 1970s and From Tabloid to Truth.

He also coauthored God’s Smuggler to China, which highlighted the story of Brother David’s Bible-smuggling operation in China.

According to Assist News Service, Wooding was one of the few Christian journalists to ever report legally from inside North Korea.

Brian Bird shared Andrew and Peter’s post, saying he first met Dan Wooding in 1980 while he was profiling the president of World Vision at that time, Stan Mooneyham.

“Dan was first a famous tabloid reporter and muckraker in the UK before finding God,” Bird wrote. “With his new worldview, he then committed the rest of his life and prodigious journalistic talents to illuminating the stories of the poor, oppressed, repressed and persecuted people all over the globe in order to seek justice for them. … Dan will be remembered as a giant upon whose shoulders the rest of young media types were privileged to stand.”

Wooding’s sons request prayer for their mother, Norma, as she grieves the loss of her husband.