Mixed-Bag of Investigative Journalists, Authors & Analysts:
[NOTE: This was originally created as a Facebook Note on January 31, 2017. It’s been edited multiple times and continues as a work in progress.]
Over my lifetime, I’ve been in the belly of the beast and know politics reasonably well:
- During the ’60s through the ’80s I was active in the civil rights, voting rights, peace and anti-nuclear movements. My very first vote was for Senator Eugene McCarthy who knocked LBJ out of the race in 1968.
- Discharged from the US Army as a conscientious objector in 1970.
- Served two terms in NH’s state legislature from 1985 to 1990 and made a 1990 bid for congress that called for drug legalization.
- Primary organizer of two national drug policy conferences at the Harvard Law School in 1992 and 1993, one of which featured the national drug czar Lee Brown, congressmen, writers and leading academics.
- Gave up establishment politics in order to become a Harvard Square street musician, a step up.
- In 2003, before and during the US invasion of Iraq, I created the first substantive antiwar debate on the Internet. I hosted two forums — Don’t Start the War and Stop The War — on the Silicon Investor international stock trading forum. SI was Facebook and Twitter before Facebook and Twitter!
- I finished #3 out of 220,000 participants in CNN’s 2016 Political Prediction Market Contest. For my effort, CNN assigned me bragging rights — lol!
- I’ve been designated by the writer’s forum, Medium.com, as a top political writer.
So I’ve been writing about politics since before word processors hit the commercial markets. I even started up a GI Resistance newspaper called The Morning Report at Fort Devens, Massachusetts in 1970.
Establishment Media
Today, oligarch protection and corporate advertising influence decimated main media objectivity. A handful of corporations monopolize 90% of all media. The once highly-revered ombudsmen critic positions have been eliminated and once-dedicated investigative journalists have been replaced with government proponents who essentially function as an Oligarch Protection Unit (OPU).
Acutely aware the public’s attention span lasts only a short cycle, outright lies, distortions, omissions and perversions of truth have become common. Consider how sometimes a headline or the first few paragraphs of reporting fail to match the content as you read deeper into an article. At one time an “anonymous source” required understood standards. Today, they’re randomly inserted as needed. These sources then get duplicated and parroted to make for a desired slant of the reporting.
Perhaps the greatest example has been the steady stream of media bombshells related to Russiagate. Note below comedian Lee Camp’s YouTube critique of a star reporter for CNN, and the wider media in general:
Why Did Trump Become Chief Critic of Fake News?
It’s noteworthy to wonder why main media relegates Donald Trump as the chief proponent for arguing against “fake news.” So long as the obviously unreliable Trump maintains this important stature, viewers are less likely to believe, understand or even know about meaningful criticisms forthcoming from serious critics, critics like Seymour Hersh, Noam Chomsky, Margaret Kimberley or Chris Hedges.
Consider how the US dealt with former British ambassador Craig Murray who is on record stating he flew to Washington DC to retrieve documents for the Julian Assange of Wikileaks exposure of the DNC. Neither the media, congressional investigators or Mueller’s special counsel investigation team ever interviewed Murray!
Alternatives to Establishment Media
I recommend following the writers, analysts and podcasts listed below. They present meaningful research and opinion. It’s best to follow what they and their colleagues share with each other on social media. This is necessary because America’s now-monopolized corporate media is no longer reliable — its sourcing is nothing like it once was in the past!
1) Twitter/Facebook
Follow the below names and read what they and their colleagues write about.
Note that most of the names mentioned below are Progressive, some Libertarian and a few are Conservative. Many, if not all, are controversial. It’s best to study and understand multiple sides of any important issue. Do not let main media simply lead you into the herd with a smile on your face. You need to question just about everything!
[NOTE: It is important to realize who, among well-known mainstream journalists, is absent from the below list.]
Notable opinion-makers:
RIP: I.F. Stone, Howard Zinn, Gore Vidal, Robert Parry, Serena Shim, William Blum, Justin Raimondo, Stephen F. Cohen, Alexander Cockburn, David Graeber, Robert Fisk and Michael Hastings.
Julian Assange, Kristinn Hrafnsson, John Pilger, Pepe Escobar, Ralph Nader, Richard Wolff, Aaron Maté, Abby Martin, Chris Hedges, George Galloway, Gareth Porter, Seymour Hersh, Noam Chomsky, Glenn Greenwald, Lucy Komisar, Joe Lauria, Craig Murray, Scott Ritter, Ray McGovern, Margaret Kimberley, Greg Palast, William Montague, Billmon, Bernhard, John Kiriakou, Dilyana Gaytandzhieva, Oliver Stone, Stephen Lendman, Matt Taibbi, Caitlin Johnstone, Ben Norton, Max Blumenthal, Lee Camp, Garland Nixon, Eva Bartlett, William Arkin, Hedwig Kuijpers, Jimmy Dore, Nafeez Ahmed, James Bamford, Jamarl Thomas, Shane Stranahan, Vanessa Beeley, Paul Jay, Jesse Ventura, Kim Iverson, Robert Sheer, The Saker, Paul Pillar, Eva Golinger, Jeremy Scahill, Rania Khalek, Mike Whitney, Gerald Horne, Elizabeth Vos, Katie Halper, Catherine Austin Fitts, Tareq Haddad, Benjamin Dixon, James Howard Kunstler, Patrick Cockburn, Naomi Klein, Tim Black, Patrick Lawrence, Rachel Blevins, Mike Prysner, Kevin Gosztola, Jonathan Cook, Michael Moore, Norman Solomon, David Sirota, Krystal Ball, Mark Ames, Eric Zuesse, Elijah J. Magnier, Paul L. Williams, Adam Carter, The Forensicator, Amy Goodman, Rick Sanchez, Caleb Maupin, Medea Benjamin, Vijay Prashad, Shaun King, Jordan Chariton, Ian Goodrum, Webster Tarpley, Thom Hartmann, Juan Cole, Lauren Steiner, Alexander Mercouris, As’ad Abukhalil, Gerald Celente, Mike Papantonio, Ryan Christian, Lee Fang, Lee Stranahan, Sarah Stillman, Tyrel Ventura, Ghassan Kadi, Mark Crispin Miller, Saagar Enjeti, Tim Anderson, Peter Kuznick, Dan Cohen, Phillip Giraldi, James Fallows, Whitney Webb and James Corbett.
There are several others, but the above list is a great start for getting a well-rounded political perspective!
2) Independent Platforms
[Each of the below will aggressively challenge main corporate media. They include primarily progressive voices, some mixed-source and even some esoteric perspectives. It’s up to you who is seeking reason and balance to decide where you place value.]
Wikileaks, Consortium News, VIPS, ProPublica, Pushback, Moon of Alabama, Black Agenda Report, Fault Lines Radio, Progressive Soapbox, Veterans for Peace, Black Lives Matter, Redacted Tonight, CodePink, theAnalysis-news, Anonymous, GrayZone Project, Common Dreams, Counterpunch, acTVism Munich, The Saker, Truthdig (archive), DW News, Al Jazeera-English, Asia Times Online, RT-CrossTalk, Black Socialists of America, Rolling Stone Useful Idiots, George Galloway’s Mother of All Talk Shows, The Jimmy Dore Show, The Black Alliance for Peace, RT-On Contact, Moderate Rebels, NowThis, IndependentLeft.News, radindiemedia.com, Eyes-Left Podcast, Our Revolution, Ralph Nader Radio Hour, Empire Files, Useful Idiots, Jacobin, Going Underground on RT, Media Roots Radio, Breaking Points, ShadowProof, FireDogLake (archive), Ring of Fire, Truthout, Anti-War.com, Watching The Hawks, The Left Coaster, Anti-Media, The Nation, The Progressive, The John Bachelor Show, Geopolitics Alert, Disobedient Media, @TheWarNerd, Status Coup, UK Column News, China Daily Global Edition, Political Misfits, The Keiser Report, leftvoice.org, New Eastern Outlook, Southfront, Tim Black TV, The Real News Network, Primo Nutmeg, The New Republic, The Robust Opposition, Humanist Report, The Rational National, Russia Insider, Political Vigilante, The Last American Vagabond, Oriental Review, Peter B. Collins Show, Dissident Voice, The Convo Couch, Secular Talk, Data For Black Lives, Whiskey Bar (archive), Media Lens, The Duran, Off-Guardian, Moscow Times, The Zero Hour, Chapo Trap House, Lionel Nation (Lionel has an unusual “Conspiratorium” — lol), Brave New Films, Status Coup, Intercept, The Outer Light, We Are Change, Talk-Radio, MrMBB333 (for strange phenomenon), America-Friendly Dictator Trading Cards.
NOTE: I’m sure there are many I’ve missed — if you have recommendations, please offer them — thanks!
