When desperation sets in to hide the truth, it's only a matter of time before it comes knocking at your door.

As another week comes to an end, liberation day is about to be replaced by revelation day, as the lies come home to roost. But where does the media fit in to this Shakespearean tragedy?

When you carry out the biggest act of deception in modern American history on the people you were elected to represent, your sole focus shifts from protecting the population to perpetuating the lies that are keeping you in power. It’s now not about the prosperity of a nation, it’s about not being found out.

Trump is moving mountains, not to create prosperity for hard working Americans and their families, but rather to control the narrative and he’s prepared to go to extraordinary lengths to achieve it. He is erecting a shield around himself as absolute protection against accountability. His illegal extortion of law firms and threats to media owners, is part of a campaign to gain absolute control of what information the people have access to. This forms the basis of what I feel is an important piece on the slow erosion of truthful reporting.

The ‘legacy media’ as they have now been labeled have rightly been challenged by many, me included, for their reporting, or rather lack of it, on the rise of autocracy in America. However, it’s easy to look in from the outside and criticise reporters who largely I believe do their best to cover events within the parameters dictated by those at the top. We have seen numerous examples of shows being cancelled and people like Joy Reid, Katie Phang and Jim Acosta lose their jobs. Many who have paid the price for their principles are now resident here on Substack and thanks to the community here, they are able to continue their work part based on the revenue stream they can generate here. Readers on this platform should congratulate themselves for keeping great reporting alive.

In some ways, this is the democratisation of the news, but it comes at a cost. Firstly in reach and secondly, there is only so far you can generally go with subscription based revenue on a platform like this. I am always disappointed when I hear social media influencers who have turned their hand to citizen journalism say, ‘we are the new news sources’ almost applauding the demise of traditional journalism. The problem with this is, when an influencer says ‘Breaking News’, they are almost always breaking the news that someone in ‘legacy media’ has reported. Let me be clear, I think it’s vital that we have trusted voices in the influencer space that can curate and diseminate news for those seeking to get it from social media. In some respects I see myself in this role too. It is a vital service which absolutely has merit and I applaud it, but to describe this as journalism is in my opinion is at best disingenuous.

We must NEVER dismiss the work of millions of accomplished journalists around the world who have worked hard to receive the requisite qualifications to call themselves journalists. I absolutely love writing, but that does not make me a journalist. I spend hundreds of dollars each month to subscribe to reputable news sources covering everything from economics, to politics, to international affairs and foreign policy. I do this because I value the integrity of the reporting I am then able to digest to form my own opinion and commentary. I do not consider myself a journalist. I am not qualified in the field and I feel it would be wrong to suggest I was.

I am a voice of opinion who spends hours and I mean hours reading through reporting, to research subjects from all perspectives to arrive at an opinion I am privileged to share here with you. I take my responsibilities seriously and take pride in the knowledge that every piece I write has a liberal bias. I never hide who I am or what I believe. If there is one thing traditional media has been guilty of, is its obsession with what they like to call ‘balance’. It has allowed balance to get in the way of responsible reporting. I often use the analogy of, it would be wrong to allow Adolf Hitler a platform to defend the final solution, but that is what media has sadly seen fit to do in recent years.

News media above all, has a RESPONSIBILITY to not provide oxygen for the kind of lies and deliberate deceit that have led us to this moment of catastrophe. It’s one thing to have an outlet like Fox Entertainment, sorry News, which has become accepted as a propaganda channel for hard right opinion (NOT NEWS might I add). It’s quite another, when the voices of common sense factual news succumbs to reporting misleading half truths helping to undermine reality. They are terrified to cut away from Trump fearful of being branded the radical left.

Unfortunately, in a world where ratings dictate the profits of a news broadcaster. Lies sell better than truth which is the predominant problem of this social media generation. The ‘market for lies’ dictates that broadcast news outlets fighting off an unregulated internet full of so called ‘citizen journalists’, for whom the truth is only ‘their’ truth, sadly results in compromised journalistic integrity. This leads to the what I like to call ‘truth lite’. Tragically truth is diluted and slowly disappears in service of profit.

Let’s get real, newspapers and media have always had a known and accepted bias. People made their choices on which paper to buy, which radio and TV shows to consume based on content being perceived to align with their own views. There is even a chart that measures political leaning, so that’s always been part of life and I have no problem with that. Where the wheels have come off the bus, is when those outlets known to have liberal leanings, are being forced to sacrifice journalistic integrity for profit. Can you imagine for one moment that Fox would have a progressive liberal road to damascus moment for profit? No, because big money would prop it up before it was forced to take that step. It would be the Oligarchy sponsored version of PBS.

It will not have escaped the attention of those taking note, that one of the first targets for Trump in the media space is PBS and NPR. These are soft targets and executive orders are the perfect weapon to destroy or an the very least disrupt to the point of making them impotent in the news media space. Targeting broadcast licenses is much more difficult, but it will not stop Trump from going down that road for sure. We are living in the most dangerous times for two generations where truth is enemy number one for the government of the United States.

To do journalism properly, you need comprehensive infrastructure to support it. Qualified and trained journalists, camera men and women, researchers, editors and a whole host of support staff. For ANYONE to say this is yesteryear, is frankly absurd. I read listen and watch extensive content every single day in order to inform myself to deliver what I believe to be a valuable contribution to the conversation. I understand the fickle nature of opinion and commentary, even that based in fact. This week for example, since my series of posts on Gaza, my paid subscriptions literally stopped dead and have largely flatlined for the first time since I began writing here. Of course it could be a coincidence, I may have unknowingly become a worse writer or suddenly ceased writing about anything of interest, but I think not.

To be clear, if that’s the cost of writing about the perpetration of war crimes as adjudicated by the International Criminal Court, then so be it, because the truth means more to me than 30 pieces of silver. I would not be the first or the last to be hurt by trying to stand up for what’s right. The reality is, it will eventually have an impact on my output because I will be unable to sustain the level of investment needed to properly research subjects I feel should be written about. I don’t believe my work should be behind a paywall, but that relies on the generosity of the people who support my work because they believe in what I do. Paying for the Truth? Since when did truth become a commodity? Life is truly strange at times, but NOTHING and I mean nothing will stop me from covering injustice no matter where it exists, no matter what the cost.

Sorry, I digress for a moment. The point I’m trying to make here, is that we need the reporting infrastructure currently in place, because it is the beating heart of the truth, even if we have to search for it in the midst of half truths and outright lies. That’s why voices like mine and many others here are important, even though that might not seem to be the case, or we may not always agree. I have spent my life as a backroom boy, working behind the scenes to make others look at their best. It’s a role I feel very comfortable in. However, to do this job properly I need access to the phenomenal talent of journalists around the world who do the heavy lifting. For me, no amount of praise for them will ever be enough for the extraordinary work they do each and every day.

My job here has become one to study all the angles to deliver a well rounded fair and factual assessment of the events of the day, through a geopolitical and social justice lens. We owe it to ourselves to at least give the truth a fare shake in a political world determined to bring out the worst in us, by lying to us with a straight face.

Next I want to examine the pervasive nature of money in politics and the cancer it causes which is eating away at representative democracy not just in America, but increasingly in other parts of the world too.