Journalism in Crisis: The War on Dissent
This article is based on speech by Whitney Webb to the First Annual Children’s Health Defense Conference on October 2022.
Introduction and Background
For years, the censorship of factual information that is inconvenient to certain powerful actors, including the U.S. Federal Government and Big Pharma, has been steadily increasing as “information warfare” has become an ever present force in our lives.
In a world where what were once obvious truths are under attack, even the very definitions of “journalist” and “journalism” have themselves become controversial and contested. Too often in this “information war,” the first casualty is the truth itself. Facts are rarely treated as sacred by the world’s largest and most influential media outlets, but instead are treated as something to be twisted and manipulated for the benefit of their paying sponsors. In this environment, too many media personalities have become mercenaries for hire and, as a consequence, public trust in the media is cratering. Meanwhile, those who do aim to champion truth in their work are targeted, smeared, and censored by tech companies and platforms aligned with “mercenary media,” unaccountable intelligence services, and out of control oligarchs….