Okay, what’s the solution?
Here’s one I think might actually work. It hasn’t been tried and wouldn’t be that hard or expensive to launch.
From time to time, “Covid writers” (and posters) get this question: What’s the solution? Or: Is there one solution that might save lives and restore hope in the concept of “justice for all?”
What follows is my personal “solution.” In my opinion, it’s the easiest solution, is certainly “do-able” and might even work.
Solution:
Someone start an investigative journalism organization that focusses only on taboo subjects, those subjects that are vitally important to society which are not being investigated by the mainstream or establishment press.
Details:
This new start-up organization, at least in its first years, would focus primarily on Covid investigations that are off-limits in mainstream press news rooms.
I envision an editorial staff of at least 100 real investigative journalists, editors, researchers, “citizen journalists” and independent freelance writers. This team would investigate every conceivable angle of all the possible Covid scandals.
Investigative topics would include: Origination of the virus; the folly of lockdowns; dangerous medical protocols and iatrogenic deaths; masks; manipulated statistics and data; spiked treatments; collateral damage; economic damages; civil liberty outrages; censorship; corrupt regulators; groupthink gone haywire, and of course the safety and efficacy of the “vaccines.”
Why this project/solution?
Because nobody in the mainstream media or any regulatory agency is doing this work. This happens to be a surreal reality, but “reality” it is.
Aren’t plenty of alternative media and citizen journalists doing this type of investigative journalism already?
Yes. And God bless them all. However, this work product is splintered and spread out among thousands of basically solo operations.
I hate to say this, but while volumes of great articles have already been produced in the “alternative media” sphere, nothing significant has changed. Government is still hyping the boosters and Anthony Fauci is sleeping like a baby every night thinking about his book royalties and board of trustees retainers.
Substack makes us feel better about the world and has moved the needle in positive ways, but Nuremberg 2.0 isn’t even on the political radar.
Something - some organization with a bad-ass attitude and noble heart - is going to have to stir things up Big Time.
This business idea would gather many of the best journalists and researchers under one website umbrella and drive traffic to this site via impeccable journalism.
The goal would be to produce a “one-stop shop” or clearinghouse of vital journalism.
It’s also important that this site reaches large enough numbers of readers to effectively challenge and debunk many false and dangerous narratives.
The simplest explanation of why someone has to do this…
The mainstream media has completely abdicated its “watchdog” role and is now completely captured. Recognizing this, a maverick and brave entrepreneur(s) is going to have to start a well-funded, well-managed, serious and highly-ambitious news organization that does the job the mainstream press is clearly not going to do. In a nutshell, this news organization will go AROUND the “gatekeepers of the news.”
This project would embody one of the greatest characteristics of America at its best: If nobody is going to do this vital work … this team of investors and principled employees is going to resolve to do it themselves.
Possible benefits:
The staff could work as a team with different staff members working different stories. The staff would benefit from collaboration and could slowly begin to connect dot after dot and sew together all the different threads of scandals that might seem overwhelming if just one or two people attempted to tackle these subjects by themselves.
All the staff would be credentialed journalists and the organization, based on its impressive early stories, would, I believe, rapidly gain credibility and generate impressive numbers of site visits.
It’s important that these journalists, researchers and freelancers have access to the sources that would provide important information and quotes. Very few individual Substack citizen journalists have this type of access. Either they can’t reach important officials (who won’t respond to their queries) or they can’t personally attend media briefings.
Significantly, this organization would send reporters to every important press briefing or public event and therefore its reporters would be able to ask questions the mainstream “journalists” refuse to ask.
This means officials would get numerous hard questions they’ve never been asked to date.
This would not be a fly-by-night, small start-up operation. In fact, no other news organization has EVER assembled a team of reporters and investigators devoted largely to one topic.
The New York Times probably has 40 or so reporters who routinely write Covid stories (all of which of course echo and promote the authorized narrative). On Day One, this operation will have two to four times as many reporters and freelance writers working just Covid stories, and none of these story angles are being pursued by the Times staffers.
As an aside, one important “beat” of this news organization would be its effort to document how captured the mainstream press really is. This news organization would routinely point out all of the stories that are off limits to today’s ‘journalists.” This news organization would also routinely fact check the mainstream press and all the alleged fact checkers.
This news organization would not only be trying to expose corrupt or fraudulent bureaucrats, it would be trying to expose how captured and sorry the entire Fourth Estate has become.
Quick summary so far …
So far, I’ve outlined a business plan of a news organization that IS going to cover topics that are currently not being covered and staffers who are going to be able to ask questions in person at media events or any public events. Already, this is a huge departure from the Status Quo.
One reason I think this might be my best idea ever is that I know that officials and people with something to hide would have a panic attack once such a business was launched. The one type organization they don’t want to come into existence … would now exist.
More benefits ….
While this news organization might have approximately 100 full-time staffers, it would also supplement its full-time staff with the work of talented and committed freelance writers. Almost no news organizations currently pays freelance writers to work on complex, important and “taboo” stories. This would change dramatically over night.
Simply providing these writers a “market” for their talents - and paying them for their work - would be a development of great significance. Genuine journalists and people with great story ideas would find this organization. Stories that were rejected out of hand for years, would now be embraced and green-lighted.
Aren’t a few organizations already doing this?
I’ve been pitching this idea in posts for years and am often given the example of organizations like The Epoch Times, which was created to focus on stories the left-leaning press avoids. I agree The Epoch Times is producing many stories the mainstream press won’t cover. But The Epoch Times doesn’t have more than 100 staffers “working” Covid stories … every day, 12-hours a day.
It’s important to note that this proposal does not envision a new “newspaper” or news magazine. The staff is not going to focus on all local or national news - just those investigations that are important and have been neglected. There would be no “sports” section or “lifestyle” section and most articles covered by the NY Times or your state’s largest newspaper would be ignored by this staff.
The staff would instead “flood the zone” or produce a Big Box “category killer” on just a few topics - the taboo, off-limits stuff. (It wouldn’t be all Covid as plenty of other “authorized” narratives are also bogus or dubious and need to be exposed, but Covid would be 80 percent of the content at least until some justice was served and some key truths revealed).
If you have 100 full-time staffers and 100 super sharp freelancers working nothing but Covid stories, this staff is going to produce “must read,” explosive content that nobody else is reporting. In short, this news organization would be the worst nightmare of Anthony Fauci, Joe Biden, Bill Gates, Pfizer and BlackRock.
The news organization would support other real journalists as well …
This “news portal” would also amplify - bring more viewers - to the outstanding work of other contrarian journalists and alternative media.
My guess is that if you are routinely sending traffic to Substack sites and smaller alternative media websites - which is going to get these sites more paid subscribers - and your business is also going to be paying some of these journalists for stories, these journalists are going to be very appreciative and probably do everything they can to market your site.
Right there you have a marketing plan that’s going to reach millions of potential readers.
Would this “solution” actually work? How would you define success?
The solution would work if this news organization succeeded in changing or debunking several false albeit ingrained narratives.
But to achieve this goal you’d have to: A) Reach many millions of people and B) Produce journalism with such iron-clad, incontrovertible evidence that large numbers of people would begin to change how they thought about various Covid topics (and their “trusted” leaders).
Also, the journalism would need to be so compelling that officials would have no choice but to launch investigations they had previously refused to perform. Basically, the job of real journalists is to produce such compelling narratives that the “public” demands that their elected officials and prosecutors do their jobs.
If officials still refuse to do their jobs, the news organization’s staffers would call them out. This used to be called “watchdog’ journalism. Journalists do the heavy lifting and hold officials accountable for doing - or not doing - their job.
So really this radical idea is to simply bringing back authentic watchdog journalism. Let 100 or 200 adult and smart skeptics see if they can pool their talents and change the world.
Is it reasonable to expect that many millions
of visitors would discover this site?
This business idea is not rocket science. It’s actually Capitalism 101. Find a product or service that many people would value that is not currently being offered … and give it to them. In this case, the “product” is just “the truth” or “important information.”
So is there, in fact, a “demand” for real, important and original journalism?
Yes, existing evidence already tells us the demand is overwhelming.
Look at the few “news organization” that are currently filling this demand.
Project Veritas just got 20 million YouTube views (before the video was pulled) from one sting operation story that shows Pfizer’s real colors.
Citizen Free Press, Zero Hedge, the Brownstone Institute, the Daily Sceptic, the High Wire, numerous Substack heroes - are all setting viewership/traffic records … because they are all running stories the mainstream press won’t run.
RFK, Jr. had the No. 1 non-fiction best-seller on the planet for months and no mainstream media organization would even review his book.
Fox News - especially Tucker Carlson - is blowing away its competition, dominating the primetime Nielsen ratings … and has recently ramped up its contrarian Covid reporting.
Corporate advertisers may blackball truth-telling sites (another giant “tell”), but viewers in huge and growing numbers actually appreciate journalism that challenges the authorized narratives.
The guess here is that if ONE site became the daily “go to” place for real investigative journalism that delivered the goods, people in very large numbers would flock to this site.
Wouldn’t the Powers that Be do everything
in their power to shut down such an operation?
As my 11-year-old daughter might say, Duh. If they don’t try, the staff isn’t doing its most important job.
While this business venture would be a noble undertaking for team members, it wouldn’t be for the timid. Basically, the goal of this operation would be to report the truth - which if reported - very well could expose liars, crooks and incompetent officials across the spectrum of world organizations.
The people and organizations who would be put under extreme and unprecedented scrutiny don’t fight fair and, also have everything to lose, so some version of the Julian Assange treatment would be expected.
Facebook would of course ban all links. Pack journalists would take their orders from whoever they get their orders from and would unmercifully attack this “misinformation” and “extremist” organization.”
Many politicians would show their true colors - again - by calling for the banning and de-monetization of such an organization, which I’m sure would be immediately linked to Russia, Q-Anon and/or the KKK.
The Columbia School of Journalism would no doubt have a conniption fit. The state of California and the nation of Canada would probably arrest on site any journalist from this organization who showed themselves in these jurisdictions.
But could “they” actually succeed in shutting down a … journalism website? Under what grounds? Will every key elected official and five supreme court justices finally just disavow the First Amendment?
I don’t think so.
They haven’t stopped Project Veritas. Citizen Free Press and Tucker Carlson are still publishing.
They’d try to stop this organization, but I don’t think they’d be successful.
Plus, the news organization would be running major stories, chronicling all the efforts to shut them down. No news organization has ever had the resources and commitment to fire back at the people trying to shut them down. By putting sunlight on the efforts of the would-be Big Brothers, the news organization would be building its case as to how corrupt the world has become.
By simply waging skirmish after skirmish, the news organization would be increasing the possibility the corrupt would over-play their totalitarian hand.
Price tag, please. So what would it take to do this?
Only some money and the right people who believe in the First Amendment, justice, the truth and all the other corny ideas this nation was founded to nurture.
I’ve actually knocked out a preliminary business plan. I think you could launch this news organization with 50 employees, but I boosted that number to 100 (plus freelance personnel) to give the effort even more punch.
You’d need to have a few offices in Washington, New York, etc. so people could cover all the bureaucrats in person. But many people could work from their homes. You’d need some computers, modems, website designers, a ton of band-width, telephones, travel expenses, some First Amendment supporting lawyers, marketing and PR people, some good editors to make sure the stories are journalistically sound and fair, etc.
I think $20 million would be plenty to get the organization through the first year. To some of us, this sounds like a lot of money, but to many people $20 million is pocket change.
Question: In a nation of 332 million people are there one or two Americans who would pony up $20 million to try to give the American public some real answers?
It’s actually quite a tell that nobody has even thought of doing this or seriously considered trying this yet. (Those Boogey Men who would oppose this must be pretty dang frightening).
In Part II, I’ll present some financing scenarios and show that while “making money” isn’t the real purpose of this venture (trying to save the country is), I wouldn’t be surprised if this venture could turn a profit. Perhaps a giant one.
I should have made one other important point in this piece: "The narrative" CAN be changed. It does't happen often, but when it does it was real journalism that spurred the change - often in a matter of days or weeks.
For example, freelance journalist Nicholas Wade (?) by himself debunked the theory that the virus came from "natural origins." For more than a year, this was THE narrative (pushed by Fauci et al of course). Once this journalist wrote his piece, laying out all the nonsensical elements of this argument and all the better arguments that is was almost-certainly manipulated in some lab .... this narrative (somehow) crumbled. It was at least fair game to consider this.
Another example is a WSJ reporter exposing Theranos and its founder.
For almost a decade, everyone thought this blood-testing device was going to change the world and this was a billion-dollar company. Once the reporter - and this news organization - did some actual investigative journalism ... that company was toast.
That's the goal or the template. Lies don't like sunlight or scrutiny.
BTW, the organization I envision would have a primo Reader Comments Section just like Substack. So some of the best news tips and story ideas or data would end up coming from readers.