Essay:In Defense of Independent Journalism

I believe independent journalism is increasingly playing a more important rule in the defense of objective truth in a way that often goes unacknowledged. The institutional biases of the media is well known, as covered in our article on the subject, but there are independent outlets covering these subjects that often go unacknowledged or underreported by the mainstream media. Jake Hanrahan, founder of the independent journalism collective Popular Front, is particularly influential in this field, and has even found his work being covered in some war studies syllabuses.

Research has found that independent journalism plays a vital role in exposing corruption and holding governments to account for their misdeeds.

Yemen

Ukraine

One area where the media underreports on is Yemen. For example, Ukraine has received much more coverage then Yemen, despite being home to one of the worst humanitarian crises of the 21st century. Part of the reason for disparity in coverage probably has to do with race. Ukraine is white and European, Yemen is Arab and Middle Eastern/Asian. There is also a significant disparity in accurate coverage, if there is coverage at all, of blame and context for the respective crises. To quote The Conversation:

Accountability in coverage is also vastly different. We found 50 headlines on Yemen that reported on specific attacks carried out by the Saudi-led coalition. Of them, 18 – just 36% – attributed responsibility to Saudi Arabia or the coalition. An egregious example that omits responsibility is this headline from April 24, 2018: “Yemen Strike Hits Wedding and Kills More Than 20.” A reader could easily interpret that as meaning that Yemen rebels were behind the attack rather than the Saudis – as was the case.

It is hard to imagine a Russian strike on a wedding in Ukraine headlined as “Ukraine Strike Hits Wedding and Kills More Than 20.”

Another example in disparity is how the Saudi-led coalition and that of Russia gets addressed:

Furthermore, a June 2017 headline portrays the coalition as concerned about the destruction it has caused: “Saudis Move to Address Civilian Toll in Yemen.” Compare this to how Russia’s attempts to address civilians are categorically dismissed: “Russia’s Explanations for Attacking Civilians Wither Under Scrutiny.”

The Conversation sourced all of this from the New York Times, a prominent mainstream media outlet.

Actual journalism

An interview with security analyst John Arterbury on the Popular Front podcast notes that there are Western journalists covering Yemen, however there isn't as much coverage on Yemen as, say, Syria or (obviously) Ukraine. One notable journalist covering Yemen is the award winning journalist Iona Craig.

Several complementary reasons have been forwarded for the lack of media coverage on Yemen. One of these reasons is that (up until the current Gaza war) there was no big security threat to Western interests from Yemen. Yemen is also, as Arterbury put it, "not sexy." There are no clear "good guys" or "bad guys" in the conflict, at least from an easy Western perspective. There is also the age-old issue of double standards. The Yemeni Crisis is driven in large part by the Saudi blockade, that Western powers back. Journalists covering Yemen might not see their work get published in order to avoid pissing the Saudis off.

As if to prove the point, because of Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea mainstream outlets like CNN are running features with headlines like "Who are the Houthis and why are they attacking ships?"

Easier access to difficult sources

As Rolling Stone points out, sources that are usually hesitant to trust mainstream media tend to be more open to independent journalists. Popular Front, for instance, has managed to get in-person access to, among other things, underground 3D-printing gun networks in Europe, and anti-Putinist partisan movements in Russia. Likewise, independent journalist Iona Craig exposed the bullshit surrounding the Trumpist narrative of the al-Ghalil raid by going right to the source: the residents of al-Ghalil themselves.

Scientific ethics

Independent journalists have also been playing an increasingly vital role in enforcing scientific ethics, as a growing movement of citizen-journalists have been relentlessly covering unethical practices in the scientific process for years now, and their work has resulted in both paper withdrawals and high-profile resignations.

Obvious caveats

Given that independent journalism is non-mainstream, this allows for a different quality of en-shittification different from mainstream/institutional media to develop. However, care should be taken to not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Genuine independent journalism I believe plays a demonstrably vital role in protecting and advancing truth free of institutional biases, as we can see with the case of Yemen and Ukraine above.

One example of fake independent journalism is The Grayzone. The Grayzone claims to be a source of original independent journalism, but is in reality a fake news engine. Given that independent journalism is journalism that is free of institutional bias, and The Grayzone demonstrably is a propaganda mill, that must mean The Grayzone are not independent journalists.

Bullshit is not journalism, and bullshit artists who call themselves journalists give the entire field a bad name.