Having slowly grown disillusioned with the level of reporting that was being passed off as “journalism”, that disillusionment grew at an alarming rate when COVID19 hit the UK in March 2020. I watched as the corporate media, almost in unison, began acting as stenographers for the official line of the English government and the devolved administrations.
I watched as government diktats were swallowed whole, regurgitated onto paper and the screens of electronic devices unquestionably and largely unverified by these stenographers.
I watched as “social media influencers”, most with conflicts of interests to external bodies such as the World Economic Forum, World Health Organisation, Sage, Independent Sage etc, sprung into action propagating varying unverified claims supporting the narrative of their interest groups whilst amassing huge social media followings in the process. Fear sells.
I watched as previously unheard of doctors, consultants and academics began pitching themselves as “Covid experts” with the aim of self-promotion rather than truth promotion. These “experts” would take a populist position and begin propagating that position to an audience whom were seeking confirmation for their own biases. People wanted frightened and scaremongers were in no short supply.
I watched as five decades of established science and epidemiology was ignored as it stood in the way of the post-Covid narratives. The new narrative was that modelling should replace facts and data. Established peer-reviewed literature should be ignored if it doesn’t lend support to the new quasi-science agenda. Scientists who point to the established science were labelled as “fringe” whilst being attacked and vilified by this new breed of self-proclaimed experts who were seemingly using the crisis to raise their online profiles with the end result of enriching themselves.
I watched as unverified facts were passed off by the governments to a neutered, uneducated and compliant media who would reprint them as facts. No challenge to the official Covid narrative was permitted and as journalists are career driven, with mortgages, they weren’t going to risk being labelled as “Covid deniers” so just went along with everyone else. Besides, they aren’t being paid to verify. Their role is to repeat.
I watched to I could no longer remain a casual observer and I felt that as the corporate media were showing no signs of ever seeking evidence for the numerous unverified claims, that someone had to at least try challenge and verify said claims.
I never underestimated the challenge or overestimated my ability. I’m a realist. But I also believed that staying silent and turning a blind eye to claims I knew where being hyper-inflated to advance a particular agenda was no longer an option for me. The more I read or heard claims being made by this cabal of self-appointment “Covid experts”, claims that were at times nothing short of lies, I no longer could stay silent.
The main driving force behind me starting this project was witnessing the average person being bombarded day and daily with misleading facts that were heightening their fear levels. I sensed a feeling of anxiety and powerlessness in a significant portion of people who felt their concerns weren’t being addressed and their voices ignored by the corporate careerist media. Many of whom may not have been able to articulate their despair. There were only a few journalists that seemed to be speaking up for them and these journalists were respectfully lacking in the ability to relay their message on social media platforms.
Too easily I witnessed as genuine people with genuine concerns were being labelled as “deniers” and “conspiracy theorists” for daring to challenge the revocation of their freedoms whilst being placed under near house-arrest. People angry because their kids were forbidden to play outdoors with friends or to partake in sports – these people were attacked and vilified for being angry.
I wasn’t sure what I could do to help, if I could help at all. But I knew I had to at least try and give them a voice. I felt I had to at least try to challenge the outright lies I saw being propagated by some of these social-media influencers and self-appointed “Covid experts”. I had at least try to try to do something.
This website is my attempt at helping give those people a voice and a public record of me attempting to hold to account those people in the public domain whose aim is self-promotion through fear mongering regardless of the costs to society as a whole.
Along the way many private citizens and academics have extended the hand of support to me and they contribute in varying ways to make this website the success it has become. Citizen Journalism is for the people, by the people and as we grow we will do so with that being the fundamental principle that underpins everything we do. When you don’t feel you have a voice, it is my desire to try and give one to you.
Peace