Mainstream media
Britain’s commitment to free speech is a farce, George Galloway has claimed
The UK is run by a bunch of hypocritical censoring pantsies. Lou
“These people are hypocrites. Things like democracy, human rights, the rule of law, and rules-based international order, it’s just lipstick on a pig. They wipe the lipstick off whenever they no longer feel the need to look prettier,” he claimed. Gallaway
© RT
Fresh from his election to parliament to the British parliament, MP George Galloway spoke with RT on Tuesday about the state of media freedom in Britain and London’s disastrous policies in the Middle East and Ukraine.
Galloway trounced both Tory and Labour candidates in last week’s Rochdale by-election, winning twice as many votes than both major parties combined. PM Rishi Sunak denounced the result as “beyond alarming” and a threat to “our democracy itself.”
As Galloway pointed out, however, he has been elected to Parliament a total of seven times – far more than Sunak or Labour leader Keir Starmer.
“These people are hypocrites. Things like democracy, human rights, the rule of law, and rules-based international order, it’s just lipstick on a pig. They wipe the lipstick off whenever they no longer feel the need to look prettier,” he claimed.
“As Sunak’s speech outside Number 10 [Downing Street] on Friday about my election makes clear, it’s not beyond them even to cancel elections,” he added.
George Galloway is not a threat to democracy – only to the elite hypocrites running the UK
British authorities have banned RT and the Iranian PressTV outright, refused to renew the license of China’s CGTN, and blocked outlets like Venezuela’s TeleSur.
“The reason is pretty simple if you think about it: Too many people were watching these TV channels. Too many people were watching RT. Not just in Britain, but even more so in Germany. That is why RT was closed down. Because too many of the public were watching it. How’s that for freedom?” said Galloway.
The best illustration of press freedom in the UK is that “a good friend of mine is lying in the dungeon of Belmarsh top security prison,” Galloway said.
“His name is Julian Assange He is convicted of no crime. And yet he is being held with mass murderers and terrorists in the worst prison for the worst people in England. And for what? For telling the truth as a publisher.”
He admitted the government might retaliate against him for speaking to RT, but said, “I don’t care.”
“I give interviews to everybody. I’m a free man, I’m an elected free man. I have the right to speak and I will go on speaking to whomsoever wants to hear me. Nothing is solved by covering things up. Nothing is solved by denying people access to a different point of view,” Galloway said, recalling RT’s long-time slogan, “Question More.”
Galloway is no stranger to RT. He has written many op-eds for the outlet and hosted his own TV show called ‘Sputnik Orbiting the World’ during his hiatus from Parliament.
Look at fake journalists accusing Carlson of being a fake journalist. Listen to these failures of humanity, do they even realize what they are saying? Bunch of eejits.
Warning: Might induce vomiting.
Will Western media outlets look past their egos and establishment narratives to take advantage of the insights from the conversation?
https://www.rt.com/news/592174-tucker-carlson-putin-interview
US journalist Tucker Carlson listens to Russian President Vladimir Putin during an interview at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia. © Sputnik / Gavriil Grigorov
American establishment media spent the days in the run-up to Tucker Carlson’s interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin pre-judging it as propaganda, and soliciting the opinions of establishment figures, like former US Secretary of state, first Lady, and presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, who dismissed Carlson a “useful idiot.”
All this before they even had the slightest notion of the interview’s content. All they knew was that Putin would have an opportunity to speak, and that ever since Carlson left Fox News and turned independent, there wasn’t any obvious establishment figure to babysit him or control what went out. Worse, it would air on the X platform (formerly Twitter) owned by Elon Musk, who describes himself as a “free speech absolutist.” So it did not bode well for the kind of propagandistic framing that the Western establishment enjoys when it comes to locking down narratives under the guise of fighting a war on fake news.
The fact that journalists balked at the very notion of Carlson interviewing Putin reeked of professional jealousy. There isn’t a credible journalist out there who wouldn’t leap at the same opportunity if given the chance. Which is why, as journalists from CNN and the BBC confirmed, they’d long sought their own interviews with Putin — unsuccessfully. Presumably, Carlson’s format, audience reach, and freedom from establishment media constraints were appealing enough to land him the opportunity. Good for him. And for the journalistic record that can only benefit from any and all contributions.
Ukraine yet to be ‘denazified’ – Putin
It’s not like other media outlets don’t also benefit from their Western colleagues questioning Putin. I experienced this myself when invited to ask a question during one of Putin’s marathon press conferences. For the record, no one had any clue what I’d be asking. Neither did I, actually, as about five or six different themes suddenly went on a spin cycle in my mind as I stood to speak. My question ultimately ended up being what Putin thinks about then President Donald Trump’s assertion that Islamic State had been defeated in Syria — Trump’s rationale for announcing the withdrawal of American troops just the day before. Putin’s response, in agreeing with Trump’s assessment, was newsworthy and was quickly picked up by CNN and other Western media. The difference between me and Carlson? No competitors had to credit me as the source of the question. So the information Putin provided could safely be used without having to credit a “competitor” and denting any egos, as is often the case in press conferences. Not so with exclusive interviews.
Focusing on Carlson as some kind of flawed messenger serves as a convenient pretext for ignoring critical information and analysis. The fact that some journalists may think that Carlson’s questioning or approach was misguided — or that he didn’t push back enough for their tastes — doesn’t mean that they can’t subsequently take what Putin said and analyze it themselves. Every bit of information, analysis, or interview of any world leader is a valuable contribution. Litmus tests have no place in objective, impartial journalism. Many of those who criticize Carlson are the same ones who routinely search the Wikileaks database for leaked and dumped classified information to flesh out their own stories about various political issues and events that have since materialized — all while refusing to acknowledge that the publisher, Julian Assange, is as much of a journalist as they are.
Carlson’s flaws arguably even served the American and global public. Much like Carlson erroneously claimed prior to the interview that other journalists couldn’t be bothered to interview Putin before he came along, he also played fast and loose with his very first question to the Russian president, stating that Putin said in his February 22, 2022, national address, at the onset of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, that he “had come to the conclusion that the United States, through NATO, might initiate a, quote, ‘surprise attack’” on Russia. “I didn’t say that,” Putin interjected. “Are we having a talk show or a serious conversation?” Carlson’s lack of precision, sounding like a guy who thought he was having a chit-chat with another dude over beers in a bar, created an opportunity for Putin to launch a history lesson going back 2,000 years on how the Ukraine conflict came about. It’s the kind of long-form discussion that the US mainstream media rarely does anymore, but which is commonplace in Europe. It could only benefit an American audience accustomed to a strict diet of sound bites — particularly in a country where just 14% of eighth graders are considered proficient in history, according to national testing.
Fyodor Lukyanov: Here’s the real reason why Tucker Carlson came to Moscow
There were a lot of things Putin said that a large cross-section of Western audiences would likely be learning for the first time. That the notion of Russia being a nuclear threat to the West is fear-mongering to extract more cash from US taxpayers for war. That Russia has always been open to negotiations with Ukraine, but that President Vladimir Zelensky has a decree prohibiting them. That former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, serving as Washington’s lapdog, intervened to stop a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine a year and a half ago. That the troubles in Ukraine started in 2013 when the Ukrainian president at the time refused an association agreement with the EU because it would effectively cause the trade border with its main partner, Russia, to close for Moscow’s fear of being flooded with the EU products coming into Ukraine. That Germany could choose to open the one remaining pipeline of Nord Stream 2 right now if it wanted to, and ease the pressure on its economy and people suffering from a deficit of cheap Russian gas — yet Berlin still chooses not to. That Russia has no territorial ambitions, and just wants the weapons to stop flowing into Ukraine and into the hands of neo-Nazis who remain unconstrained by Ukrainian legislation. That the only reason Russia would ever invade Poland or any other part of Europe is if Russia was attacked.
Finally, Carlson wrapped up with a plea for the release of Wall Street Journal reporter, Evan Gershkovich, imprisoned in Moscow on espionage charges. “I don’t know who he was working for. But I would like to reiterate that getting classified information in secret is called espionage. And he was working for the US special services, or some other agencies,” Putin said. During the Cold War, the Church Committee hearings in Washington found that dozens of American journalists had been used as spies for the CIA. It’s a convenient way for spies to get what they need while hanging someone else out to dry, and the activities can look the same. The difference is in who’s directing the activity (a media outlet or the government) and who’s the end consumer (a spy agency or the public). And it’s a practice that absolutely still continues today, as many journalists who have worked overseas can attest. It’s an unfortunate one, that NGOs have persistently pleaded with governments to stop. Without providing details, Putin suggested that’s what was going on here, and that the issue is being worked out between the US and Russian services. Not exactly the clear-cut narrative that’s being spoon-fed to the Western public.
The biggest achievement of Carlson’s Putin interview is arguably that it added some much-needed grey matter to the Western depiction of a black-and-white global landscape. The problem for the Western establishment is that grey areas are notoriously difficult to control and hard to manipulate for the purpose of driving an agenda.
I could only stomach one minute before nausea started its process. These vile propagandists have to be stopped.
It’s kind of funny watching non-journalists (CNN) accuse Carlson of not being a journalist. Dumbasses, he is the only journalist the US has at the moment. Scum.
We cannot wait to see what a real journalist does with Putin.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/joe-rogan-has-shattered-media-monolith
SATURDAY, FEB 03, 2024
Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance
It was just about two years ago that I wrote an article detailing how the mainstream media was losing the fight of its life against Joe Rogan. In 2022, I also wrote about how CNN had basically crumbled at the hands of alternative media.
On Friday, news broke that Rogan was renewing his contract with Spotify and that it would likely be worth (another) $250 million.
The hilarious thing is that this renewal and the continued success of alternative media sources, like the very blog you are reading right now, come at a time when legacy media corporations are engaging in mass layoffs and losing both subscribers and viewership.
When I started my podcast in 2018 and this blog in 2021, something Joe Rogan once said echoed in my ears:
“You don’t have to be everything for everybody; you just have to be something for somebody.”
And that was exactly why I wanted to start a podcast. The people that I wanted to hear from in the world of finance, like Peter Schiff and Bill Fleckenstein, were given zero time in the mainstream media.
When they were invited on, they were heckled, ridiculed, and used as punching bags, despite often being the only people correctly predicting how the economy would go and representing the only counterbalance to an always bright, sunny, and cheery mainstream financial media.
I didn’t really care if anybody ever listened to my podcast; I just wanted to have an excuse to invite people on whose perspectives I wanted to hear but wasn’t getting from the mainstream media. In other words, I became part of a media-free market that wanted to test to see if my needs were similar to those of other people who followed the news in the industry.
Lo and behold, about five years later, my podcast has over 6 million plays/downloads across platforms. It’s definitely not The Joe Rogan Experience, but it’s something for somebody. It’s the same with my blog. Those who are subscribers here know that I write to discuss issues that are on the fringe—issues specifically not covered by the mainstream media. They are not always worth covering, but sometimes they are — that’s the risk I run. Regardless, for the most part, you wouldn’t be getting it anywhere else so that makes it worth it for me to hash out. I don’t mind sorting through the muck on “the fringe.”
The crumbling of the once-great media establishments like the LA Times, which announced massive layoffs last week, and CNN, who has fired most of the key staff that was on board a few short years ago, goes to show that the free market has determined there is a significant need for other types of media.
Back in the days of cable news, before streaming video and podcasts, there was really only one way to get your news. Today, the internet has revolutionized the industry and has become the vehicle for us in alternative media. No matter how “fringe” your view of the world is, there is now generally a media echo chamber of some sort you can go lock yourself in when you want to. From there, the free market and consumer dollars will determine who will be raging successes and who won’t.
Generally, when you sign your second $200 million deal in less than a decade, it’s a pretty good sign that the free market has deemed you a success — especially when your biggest former critics, people like Brian Stelter, are walking around unemployed while you do it.
And it isn’t some secret as to why the Joe Rogan Experience has been a success; rather, it’s quite simple: he has a range of guests, explores topics that are off-limits elsewhere, takes things in a calm, relaxing and jovial, humorous fashion, asks genuine, open-minded questions, and generally broaches serious topics with a healthy dose of lightheartedness and common sense.
In other words, Joe Rogan approaches things with good faith and honesty.
And this, pray tell, has been the main differentiating factor between a lot of the alternative media and giant media empires. The world is becoming aware of the fact that the giant media conglomerates all have a narrative—whether it is left, right, or otherwise—and they are all doing the bidding for their respective powers that be. And don’t get me wrong, there is a place for this, but it is among lobotomized automatons who are happy to have somebody else do their thinking for them, not the rest of us.
A free market in any industry does well to allocate resources to where they belong. The mainstream media monolith is seeing its foundation crack because its viewership, the “resources” of the industry, is drifting to other sources.
The beautiful thing about alternative media is that the overhead can be super low, and, in my case, I’ve been lucky enough to not really have to engage in any type of major marketing, save for a couple of emails that I send out each weekend. For the most part, it’s a one-man show. No producers, no multi-million dollar budget, no sponsors to bow to and no “guidelines” about what I can and can’t talk about.
My friend Phil Bak casually asked me on Friday what I thought the marketing budget was for big media corporations.
“Like fifty million a year or something,” I guessed.
“Exactly,” Phil replied to me. “Fifty million f*cking dollars. And they can’t find a single interesting thing to say.”
Unlike the dolts eating from the trough of their sponsors to determine their content, I’m lucky enough to get incredible content from friends of mine voluntarily because they, too, have been ignored by the mainstream. If they had opinions that were useless, there wouldn’t be a market for them. Instead, my subscriber list continues to grow.
This means people are thirsty for an honest, open discussion and debate about the merits — especially in the world of finance, where modern monetary theorists proclaim themselves God while in the background their “theory” is self-immolating in plain sight.
And so, less than a decade in to Rogan’s Spotify push, we have seen a major mutation of the media landscape, and my guess is that it is going to continue shifting as the days, weeks, and months go by. There will be more Rumbles, there will be more Barstool Sports, there will be more independent podcasts, there will be more grassroots news organizations, and, generally, there will be more honesty, candor, and fearlessness in the way news is reported. Some of the most important stories over the last two years, including ones about Covid and censorship, have been broken by independent investigative journalists like Michael Shellenberger and Matt Taibbi.
It is no mistake that these fearless individuals, bringing truth to light for those who seek it, have been welcomed onto the very same podcast platform that is earning Joe Rogan another $200 million contract. The populace is thirsting for truth.
And Rogan is personifying what the free market is telling the mainstream media machine: we’re done with authoritarianism, we can handle the truth, don’t infantilize us, you don’t know what’s best for us, let us make up our own minds and, in not so many words, treat us as adults with sovereignty over our own liberty.
Congrats on the new contract, Joe, and thanks for the inspiration.
—
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Michael Snyder
Jan 23, 2024
Should any of us be surprised that the news industry is being hit by a massive wave of layoffs? Survey after survey has shown that the American people have lost faith in the mainstream media, and millions of us have decided to turn to other sources for news and information. Mainstream news outlets have been bleeding viewers and readers for years, and now many of the biggest names in the news industry are losing staggering amounts of money. It was only a matter of time before we witnessed large scale layoffs, and now they are here.
Of course, it isn’t just the mainstream media that is laying off workers. According to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, the number of layoffs in the United States in 2023 was 98 percent higher than it was in 2022…
The pace of job cuts by U.S. employers accelerated in 2023, with the number of layoffs surging 98% compared with the previous year.
That is according to a new report published by Challenger, Gray & Christmas, which found that companies planned 721,677 job cuts last year, a substantial increase from the 363,832 layoffs reported in 2022.
The problem could get worse in 2024 as the labor market continues to soften in the face of high interest rates and stubborn inflation.
But it is true that the news industry is being hit particularly hard. For example, Time Magazine just announced that it will be laying off workers “across several departments including editorial, tech, sales, and TIME Studios”…
Time Magazine laid off an uncertain number of staffers across departments on Tuesday, a move CEO Jessica Sibley called “The necessary step we must take in order to drive our business forward and improve our financial position.”
In an internal memo to staff, obtained by Semafor’s Max Tani, Sibley announced the cuts.
“We have made the difficult decision to eliminate roles today across several departments including editorial, tech, sales, and TIME Studios,” Sibley wrote to staff. “We are immensely grateful for the contributions of these talented team members during their tenure at TIME.”
When I was a kid, Time Magazine was very highly respected and my parents would often have a copy of it on the coffee table.
But now it is dying just like the rest of the mainstream media.
Just look at what is happening to the largest newspaper in California. The Los Angeles Times has decided to eliminate “slightly more than 20% of the newsroom”…
The Los Angeles Times on Tuesday, facing what senior leadership described this week as a “financial crisis,” commenced a round of painful layoffs across the newsroom, a workforce reduction that is set to be one of the most severe in the newspaper’s 142-year history.
The cuts will impact at least 115 journalists, a person familiar with the matter told CNN, or slightly more than 20% of the newsroom. Some 94 of those cuts will be among unionized employees, union chief Matt Pearce said, meaning a quarter of the union will be laid off.
Should we be sad that the Los Angeles Times is imploding?
I don’t think so.
Elsewhere, Paramount plans to give the axe to hundreds of workers…
Amid speculation about its future, Paramount Global is proceeding with a new wave of staff reductions in February, sources tell Deadline. I hear the cuts will impact hundreds of employees across the entire company.
For the past several days, there has been chatter that Paramount layoffs of about 800 are imminent. It followed a WSJ report in December that the company was mulling the potential elimination of more than 1,000 jobs in early 2024 to rein in costs.
Paramount is the parent company of CBS, and so it is likely that the news division at CBS is about to get even smaller.
Of course, the news division at NBC is shrinking as well…
NBC News has laid off several dozen staffers, the latest of dozens of companies to start off the new year with bad news for its employees, USA TODAY confirmed Friday.
A source familiar with the plans said that employees were given a 60-day notice and will get severance packages and outplacement.
Sports journalism has also fallen on hard times.
At this point, it appears that the future of Sports Illustrated is very much in doubt and many of the magazine’s employees will now be searching for new employment…
The future of iconic magazine Sports Illustrated looked dire Friday after the publisher announced mass layoffs.
The Arena Group — which had been roiled by reports that the fabled magazine published AI-generated content — admitted to failing to make a $3.75 million quarterly licensing payment to Authentic Brands Group due this week.
As a result, the publicly-traded Arena announced Thursday it would make a “significant reduction” in its workforce of more than 100 journalists.
All of the stories that I just shared with you have happened within the last seven days.
It is crazy how rapidly things are moving now.
Of course, many other industries are shedding workers too. Earlier today, we learned that SolarEdge will be laying off approximately 16 percent of its workforce…
SolarEdge, a company that makes inverters for solar panels, will shed about 16% of its workers.
The company said Sunday roughly 900 people will lose their jobs in a restructuring plan “designed to reduce operating expenses and align its cost structure to current market dynamics.” It called industry conditions “challenging” in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
And Vroom Automotive will be laying off “most of its employees” as it permanently shuts down its used vehicle operations…
In an SEC filing and an announcement on its website Monday evening, Vroom Automotive said that it shut down as used vehicle dealer after Ally suspended its credit line. Vroom will no longer retail any of its vehicles. It will sell its inventory on the wholesale market. It will lay off most of its employees. It will only keep its subprime auto-lending platform United Auto Credit (UACC), and its used-vehicle listing platform CarStory, both of whose clients are other used-vehicle dealers.
For many more layoff announcements, please see my previous article entitled “Alert! Here Is A List Of 20 Large Companies That Have Just Decided To Conduct Mass Layoffs”.
It appears that the U.S. economy has reached a critical tipping point. The economic outlook for 2024 is not good at all, and employers are racing to cut payrolls in anticipation of what is coming.
If you currently have a good job that you value, hold on to it as tightly as you can.
Because a lot more layoffs are on the way, and you don’t want to be without a chair when the music stops playing.
As an 8% rise in child deaths in England is revealed, a new investigation shows how Moderna carefully monitored and attacked voices (including me) questioning mandates, industry profiteering, and the efficacy and safety of childhood vaccinations.
Tucker Carlson: Before you get into it, I just want to thank you, by the way, for taking the time to go through this proposal, because you’re absolutely right. It’s impenetrable, it’s designed to be, to cloak what they’re saying rather than eliminate it. What’s it called?
Weinstein: The funny thing is actually, I was looking this morning to find out what the current name is and the names have actually been shifted slightly, clearly a feature. And it’s unclear to me how much that’s just simply designed to confuse somebody who tries to sort it out and how much that’s designed to, for example, game the search engine technology that might allow you to track the changes because to the extent that the name has shifted.”