The Rise of the 'Citizen Journalist'
Covid and the Citizen Journalist were both born in 2020.
Who knows? It’s possible future historians will label the years 2020-2025 as the period when the “Citizen Journalist” began to transform the media landscape.
Social or media historians might note this was the time period when the public rejected the “journalism” produced by corporate-owned news organizations, which had become widely-perceived as non-credible and biased - as entities captured by the very organizations watch-dog journalists were supposed to hold accountable.
For those paying close attention, this change is already occurring.
Substack is the world’s best-known “independent writers’ platform” - a platform now replete with thousands of writers and researchers who either have no professional experience working for a traditional news organization and/or by people who, for a variety of reasons (mass layoffs being one), no longer work in the legacy media.
A person reading this article might subscribe to scores (or even hundreds) of Substack newsletters - most of which are published by “citizen journalists” - citizens who have no formal training in journalism or ever earned a paycheck in this field.
Several weeks ago, I published the results of my own citizen research project, a project that attempted to identify approximately 150 writers who’ve developed significant audiences of readers/subscribers by focussing on topics that are taboo to mainstream journalism.
A sample of citizen dissidents …
While two content creators on this list (Alex Berenson and Matt Taibbi) are long-time and well-known journalists, the vast majority of Substack’s best muckrakers fit the label of citizen journalist.
For example …
A Midwestern Doctor, by training, is a … midwestern doctor.
Dr. Meryl Nass was a family medicine doctor … until Maine’s Medical Licensing Board pulled her license (because, truth be told, of her contrarian … journalism).
Dr. Peter McCullough is a cardiologist who has written or co-written a library full of medical and scientific research papers … but now has more than 130,000 followers on Substack (and recently announced a venture to focus even more on real investigative journalism).
Dr. Robert Malone is a scientist who’s now just-as-well-known as a writer who writes about science, but not just science.
Jessica Rose is another scientist, not as famous as Malone, but now a “rock star” in one slice of Substack.
Sasha Latypova (previously a consultant who helped organize pharmaceutical trials) and Igor Chudov (a data analyst) have foreign-sounding names which provided no impediment to them becoming household names to hundreds of thousands of Americans who now eschew mainstream journalism.
Jeff Childers is a practicing lawyer who parlayed his writing and social commentary skills into a profitable side venture.
My friend Mark Oshinskie is a retired attorney as is Lucia Sinatra, who publishes the Substack No College Mandates.
The Substack authors Eugyppius and Mark Crispin Miller are professors by training.
El gata malo is not actually a bad cat who never hits the capitalization key … I’m not sure what this cat’s professional background is … but I’m pretty sure he never worked for a major newspaper before he became one of the world’s best-known alternative journalists.
Steve Kirsch was a millionaire tech investor who now spends 14 hours a day interviewing people and doing complex, time-consuming research journalists used to do.
Everyone is not on Substack …
And it’s not just Substack authors who are now competing with The New York Times and Gannett’s journalists.
Del Bigtree was an off-camera employee who helped produce a syndicated health TV show, but now tackles major, off-limits subjects from his “Highwire” in front of the camera
Joe Rogan was a stand-up comedian few comedy fans had heard of … who got the last laugh as podcast sensation.
Robert Kennedy, Jr., a lawyer and environmental activist, started the non-profit Children’s Health Defense, an organization that later launched The Defender, an investigative journalism website that specializes in stories the MSM will never cover.
Jeffrey Tucker, who has held at least a dozen jobs in his life, found his life’s true calling by starting an organization that tries to recruit and support as many talented, liberty-defending writers as possible, The Brownstone Institute.
In the UK, Toby Young, a journalist, started a website (The Daily Sceptic) designed to support citizen journalists who can’t get similar articles published in the mainstream press.
And then there’s Bill Rice, Jr., who did, mostly, work in journalism, but for tiny community newspapers nobody outside of Troy or Montgomery, Alabama had ever heard of.
Except for RFK, Jr., few people had ever heard of any of these “citizen journalists” - nor the hundreds of Substack “contrarian” authors I could have identified if I wanted to make this dispatch longer.
All of these authors self-marketed their work and their “brands” grew by word-of-mouth and Internet shares.
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Also, most of these every-day citizens started filing stories - or producing content via podcasts - because they knew nobody else in the mainstream “professional” media would produce this type of content or cover the topics they thought were important.
Some of these authors have gone on to publish books, are frequent guests on other alternative media shows and now get paid to speak at ‘Freedom” symposiums or conferences (another new and growing “event” trend).
That was then, this is now ….
Once upon a time (not that long ago), the media’s rock stars were people like George Will, Geraldo Rivera, Bill Krystal, Rush Limbaugh and Matt Drudge, a website curator who always provided links to syndicated columnists - a profession that’s now almost extinct.
As an aside, a good story for legacy or alternative media journalists would tell readers where Matt Drudge is today. (Is he chilling out on the same island as Jeffrey Epstein?)
I have noticed The Drudge Report’s list of daily stories has shrunk by 80 percent and that none of these stories were published by Substack contrarians, which tells me Matt Drudge, a former contrarian himself, is now embarrassed by his non-conformist past.
News Talk Radio is still around but, sadly, the king (El Rush-Bo) is gone.
… Just like the Beatles supplanted Elvis Presley, Joe Rogan easily and quickly soared past the King’s protege, Sean Hannity.
The death throes of the MSM …
While citizen journalists were rapidly growing their brands, the Mainstream Media was gradually - and then rapidly - dying. The cause of death, according to the Substack Contrarians: self-inflicted suicide.
Today, except for Bill Gates’ “Excellence-in-Journalism” grants … or windfalls laundered through USAID … or liberal billionaires seeking to flush hundreds of millions of dollars down the toilet by purchasing media companies … or Big Pharma’s generosity in providing monthly infusions of protection money … the population of legacy media organizations might be smaller than red-cockaded woodpeckers.
Twenty years ago, customers could find USA Today newspaper racks at every convenience store in the USA.
These newspapers were often 48 pages with each page of newsprint measuring 11 x 20 inches. Today, maybe 10 convenience stores in America still have racks; the paper’s news is presented in 16 pages and the page dimensions (I need to find a ruler) have shrunk to maybe 9 x 14 inches.
Even with glaring news shrinkflation, a print copy costs $2 instead of 50 cents.
A couple of years ago, USA Today’s parent company Gannett merged with NewHouse, now re-branded as “New Media,” which means “The Same Old Sorry Media but much smaller.”
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It’s probably not uncommon for a typical newsroom in a mid-sized city to have 2 to 4 full-time news journalists.
Press runs that used to be 200,000 at Gannett’s Montgomery Advertiser are now 6,000. Papers that for more than a century published seven days a week now publish three days a week … if a print edition is even published.
More than a decade ago, Newsweek - not a single-edition of the magazine, but the entire company - sold for $1 … and the buyer, saddled with millions of dollars of debt, over-paid.
Newsweek’s long-time rival, Time, is still publishing a magazine every week, but the page count is not much greater than the newsletter once produced by your local Farmers’ co-op.
A good story for our times …
In the future - if Jeff Bezos buys it and the magazine is still publishing CIA press releases and the magazine wants to shock its remaining subscribers - Time might identify its “Person of the Year” as “The Citizen Journalist.”
This edition could highlight the contributions of all the people who never went to Columbia or spent one day at The New York Times, who, operating with a payroll of one, still managed to register scoop after exclusive scoop.
More likely, however, is a Time cover story on the “Scourge of the Citizen Journalist.” This story will chronicle how disinformation spreaders have become the world’s greatest threat and are seeking to kill democracy.
The solution might be government-licensed professional journalists, a proposal that’s already been advanced in Canada.
Of course, we already have the USAID-backed “Trusted News Initiative,” which per the Law of Opposite Effects, made even more citizens realize they should never trust the authorized journalism. (And made thousands of citizens decide, “Hell, I can do this.”)
The birth of a rock star …
Citizen Journalism was born in the Year 2020, the same year as Covid.
While I need to confirm this, according to good sources, the head nurse at this hospital spoke up and told everyone to “leave this one alone.” Apparently, she could tell right away … this Citizen was Bad to the Bone.
(A possible Achilles’ heel of Citizen Journalism is journalists have to constantly solicit fellow citizens for donations. The professional journalists don’t have to do this.)
I know I'm old, but what I miss most about the newspaper was how it could be swapped around. Go into the barber shop and there a couple sitting around. I go into a restaurant with the newspaper to eat lunch and I leave it on the table for the next guy. Those days are sadly gone. Great article Bill, keep on chugging...
Edit: I added this sentence, because I shouldn't have omitted Jeffrey Tucker and Brownstone ...
Jeffrey Tucker, who has held at least a dozen jobs in his life, found his true life’s calling by starting an organization that tries to recruit and support as many talented, liberty-protecting writers as possible, The Brownstone Institute.