Joe Martino – Glenn Greenwald is the instrumental journalist who worked with Edward Snowden to put together his story and release it to the world. At the time working with the Guardian, Glenn eventually left to co-found his own media company, The Intercept, that would not be hindered in reporting on government corruption and the wrong doings of powerful people. Now, he has resigned from The Intercept because they have just censored him.
Many imagine our world is filled with corruption, hear of it sometimes, but often don’t quite see how far it goes because media is complicit in covering it up on behalf of those in power. We are seeing this today with the Hunter Biden laptop situation. Every journalist should be trying to find out what’s going on here. After all, the evidence is pretty incriminating that ‘the big guy’ mentioned in multiple emails and letters connected to the Biden family could very well be Joe Biden, meaning he is taking illegal money from shady deals with foreign interests.
Why should people not know about this? Why is the media and social media coordinating to hide all of this information and not properly investigating?
Glenn Greenwald has become increasingly upset at his colleagues in journalism lately, multiple times stating on the Joe Rogan podcast earlier this week that he is shocked at how much they are refusing to cover anything meaningful related to the Hunter Biden laptop story. This is not what journalism is about. It’s not about protecting people, it’s about telling the public the truth so they can make decisions with accurate information and understandings in mind.
Glenn decided to do the reporting himself on the story. But, The Intercept, a media organization he co-founded, decided to censor Greenwald in his story titled: ‘The Real Scandal: U.S. Media Uses Falsehoods To Defend Joe Biden From Hunter’s Emails’
In response to being censored, Glenn wrote on his new website:
“I am posting here the most recent draft of my article about Joe and Hunter Biden — the last one seen by Intercept editors before telling me that they refuse to publish it absent major structural changes involving the removal of all sections critical of Joe Biden, leaving only a narrow article critiquing media outlets.”
Glenn’s statements show a very clear intention at The Intercept to protect Joe Biden, and in essence, mislead people. A problem that has long existed in media, and has intensified with a Trump presidency. I have often stated that most people are not voting for politicians from a place of knowing what is going on in the world, they are voting for politicians from the standpoint of believing in an illusionary world that does not exist. This is why the first step in our mission here at CE is to provide information that helps people “Break The Illusion” that their perception is built on. This way, we can begin seeing something that more closely resembles the truth, and start making sense of the world.
In the article that Glenn intended to have published on the Intercept he writes:
“Publication by the New York Post two weeks ago of emails from Hunter Biden’s laptop, relating to Vice President Joe Biden’s work in Ukraine, and subsequent articles from other outlets concerning the Biden family’s pursuit of business opportunities in China, provoked extraordinary efforts by a de facto union of media outlets, Silicon Valley giants and the intelligence community to suppress these stories.
One outcome is that the Biden campaign concluded, rationally, that there is no need for the front-running presidential candidate to address even the most basic and relevant questions raised by these materials. Rather than condemn Biden for ignoring these questions — the natural instinct of a healthy press when it comes to a presidential election — journalists have instead led the way in concocting excuses to justify his silence.”
As stated by Greenwald, the only article The Intercept published on the recent Hunter Biden laptop story was that the information likely came from a Russian disinformation plot, likely to again pass on the idea that Russia is meddling in the US election. That, instead of just telling the American people the truth, that there is more to this story and that there is no evidence at all that it came from any Russian involvement. Simply, it’s likely that Joe Biden and his family have many skeletons – just like most other politicians.
Greenwald was appalled by the US media vastly claiming this story was a nothing burger, a distraction from Russia and stated:
“Second, the often-repeated claim from news outlets and CIA operatives that the published emails and texts were “Russian disinformation” was, from the start, obviously baseless and reckless. No evidence — literally none — has been presented to suggest involvement by any Russians in the dissemination of these materials, let alone that it was part of some official plot by Moscow.
As always, anything is possible — when one does not know for certain what the provenance of materials is, nothing can be ruled out — but in journalism, evidence is required before news outlets can validly start blaming some foreign government for the release of information. And none has ever been presented. Yet the claim that this was “Russian disinformation” was published in countless news outlets, television broadcasts, and the social media accounts of journalists, typically by pointing to the evidence-free claims of ex-CIA officials.”
Greenwald has no current plans for what he will do next or where he will go with his journalism. But his new website will do for now. I imagine it will be easier to see where cards fall after the upcoming US election results are publicized.
A New Kind of Media
It almost begs the question, are we ready as a society to truly create and disseminate journalism that is honest, integral and bi-partisan? Why is it that these types of organizations fail or struggle? How did Intercept fail? Well, they are no longer staying true to their mission. They fell to the pressure of politics and fell into ideology. How many other times did ideology change what they reported or coloured their stories? Yes, it’s almost impossible to have zero bias, but how close can we get to zero?
I look at what has happened here with CE, we struggle to stay funded because we stick to a completely bi-partisan position, and ask deeper questions that explore what about us as humans right now makes the world the way it is, and what can we do to change that. We know our style is ahead of its time in many ways, but it feels right, so we do it. Fact checkers have hit us hard, not because our statements or reporting is false, but because we simply are not ‘allowed’ to say certain things. The exact type of behaviour we are seeing from the Intercept. It’s not that Glenn’s reporting was wrong, it’s that he wasn’t ‘allowed’ to say it.
Just the other day, Julian Walker from the Conspirituality podcast, refused to come on our network and engage in a debate/discussion about some topics he was misrepresenting because he believes I am a ‘conspiracy theorist and ‘flat earther’ and doesn’t want to associate. Where would he get such an idea? I have only ever spoken about flat earth in that I think it’s a practical joke being played on people, so where would this come from? Did this man even do his research? Did he fall for the false fact checking that has damaged our brand? Can we trust his research on his own podcast when he has such false positions like that of what he stated about my character? I don’t know. But I can see the damage that has been done to people who have committed their lives to making the world a better place and reporting on things you’re ‘not allowed’ to talk about.
It has long been my feeling that media, especially alternative media, is going through the stages of maturing. Dropping behind as much bias as possible, dropping the emotional and manipulative tilts, the protection of government and powerful interests, and engaging the BIG questions of who we are, why we are here and where we want to go. Those trailblazing this change are having a tough time right now as the old paradigm dies out, but it’s a change that needs to happen.
I feel what Glenn has done here is inspiring and truly the takeaway here. Times are changing. As much as you might feel a bit down to hear of more censorship, truly look at how these events play as another indication that things are changing and people are making decisive choices in a direction towards freedom – inner and outer. Every even gives us something to look at, reflect upon and take new action from. This is how we learn about who we are from current events.
If you want to hear more from Glenn Greenwald regarding his decision to leave The Intercept, check out the video below.
SF Source Collective Evolution Oct 2020