The future of journalism, right now.

Legacy corporate journalistic media continues to fail the people of the United States. Now, independent multi-platform journalists are reporting original stories, and bringing in large audiences.

Sep 04, 2024

With continued consolidation into the hands of the Oligarchs and Monopolistic Corporations, today’s corporate journalism, and all the journalists it employs, serves the needs of the wealthy and the wealthy alone.

Non-profit corporate journalism isn’t going to save legacy journalism, or turn it into a good that serves the people. At this moment in-time, the oligarchs who control the legacy corporate journalistic media are the same oligarchs who control corporate non-profits.

A corporate journalist has always been and always will be the mouthpiece of the corporation.

This isn't a judgment, this is a recognition that corporations, for-profit and non-profit, demand allegiance for working there. When it comes to journalism, that means saying what the Oligarch owner wants you to say, which will never weaken, and a good chance will strengthen the power of the Oligarch.

Republicans have been stepping on and bypassing the media since talk radio in the 80s. But there's a new talk radio. Now independent journalists who use TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, podcasts, Substack and their own website to reach hundreds of millions with original reporting that includes their own sources and access to power are allowing politicians, academics, leaders and celebrities to bypass the Oligarchs’ editor and go directly to the people.

The multi-platform independent journalist speaks directly to their audience and develops a one-to-one relationship. As part of that connection, the audience forms a clear picture of the journalist’s bias, and can more easily weigh that bias than trying to figure out what the boss of CNN or Fox News or The New York Times wants and how that comes out of a corporate journalist’s mouth. And the people find this valuable! And they pay with their eyeballs for ads and subscriptions and merchandise.

Not to mention, the politicians, academics, leaders, celebrities and independent journalists now talk directly to their audience, bypassing all gatekeepers. Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party machine are putting on a masterclass right now. And every step of the way, where corporate media has a chance to demonstrate that it can provide people with useful information, they choose meta-narratives about what politicians say about each other, which is basically celebrity gossip masked as informed political opinion. Or they choose a horse race narrative. And then they combine the two into a fact free world where the corporate journalist media’s own discussion is more important than the topic at hand, the governing of the United States of America. It makes for great, if not useless, entertainment. It does not make an informed or engaged citizenry.

At the same time, independent journalists are reporting sourced information and conducting interviews. Many of them are clear to provide the facts as they know them, and then provide a separate interpretation where they are providing more of a hypothesis then opinion delivered as fact.

The independent journalist should not be confused with the independent pundit. The keyboard warrior pundit has been around since Day 1 of the Internet. They, like the legacy pundit, only adds to the meta-talk and provides entertainment with another heavy dose of opinion as fact. This essay can be taken as one such example.

So why are we witnessing the future now? Because the audience of the independent journalists when counted in total minutes watched and read is now equal to or greater than that of the legacy journalistic media. The more independent journalists demonstrate they can provide a better news product while supporting themselves with a subscription plus advertising model, the more we will see the Oligarchs use their legacy media to try and bury the independents. For the Oligarchs’ continued existence depends on it. While our liberty and freedom, if we are to ever truly attain these ideals, depends on more and better independent journalism every day.