Journalism doing what journalism does
We need more journalists standing up, calling out the farce, den of lies so much media is, these days.
Do you remember this?
At the time, it was a revelation. Someone from inside journalism showing the world what an ass, what lies the President was spouting and represented. Thank you Muntadar al-Zaidi.
In today’s world, 20 years on, things have only gotten worse. You watch the news and there are lies every minute. Journalism is ceasing to exist. In Russia for sure but in the West also. The idea of journalism being a check on power, the 4th estate, has died on the vine.
So it was a big surprise to see on Russia’s Channel 1, Marina Ovsyannikova and her act of defiance, showing that the emperor wears no clothes and that the media is a prostitute with no clothes.
We need more journalists to step up and call things out. Many are. We need many more like these brave souls, fighters for truth, freedom of thought and information.
Tara Henley finally got fed up with the CBC, Canada’s propaganda machine. How they are one-sided, agenda and ideology-driven drivel makers. Tara’s substack is a great read - subscribe!
Anna Politkovskaya called Putin a murder (it was true, she had proof about it in Chechnya) and paid for it with her life.
Gyorgiy Gongadze was an early internet news pioneer in Ukraine. He had the goods on President Kuchma and his corruption. He was killed for his brave calling out of the emperor with no clothes. I lived that time and was there in Kyiv when they found him beheaded in a forest, leaving behind his beautiful twin girls.
Julian Assange. Wikileaks founder and journalist. He called out the US government for its “extrajudicial” killings. Just another word for state murder. A hero. He published information he received like any other news outlet is obliged to do. In the public interest. Governments work for us and the information and actions they take should, need, must be transparent.
Who will be the next to stand up as a journalist and declare the media is a mirage? The emperor wears no clothes?
You may think, “What? There is no problem. There is only truth in what I read.” It reminds me of this.
Or as the first democratic black country leader in the world, Haiti’s own Toussaint Louverture said,
“The worst kind of slave isn’t one locked and chained in bondage. The worst kind of slave is the slave, locked and chained in bondage that doesn’t know he is a slave.”
Thanks for your article, David. I remember that Arab who threw a shoe toward George Bush and at that time i thanked him because i believed that Bush was a liar (even in the movie named "Vice" in 2018, it truthfully showed Bush's baseless claims). And about the quote at the end of your essay, i believe the worst kind of slave is one who chooses to live under a master even if he/she is free to live anyway they want.