It’s difficult to escape mainstream media’s coordinated news narrative. This narrative is developed by the US political establishment and actively and willingly promulgated daily on traditional broadcast and print media. Sadly, day by day, the “acceptable’ official interpretation of current events is spreading to social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok as well. Countervailing views are blocked as misinformation or disinformation. Even Elon Musk’s X platform, under enormous economic pressure, has had to reduce its’ stated goal of real freedom of expression.
Where and from whom do readers committed to understanding what is factually happening in the world go to find information? I have created a list of both social media platforms and journalists that offer an alternative to the viewpoints of the mainstream media which is promulgated across the West.
At the moment the major worldwide social media alternative to Facebook, YouTube, and even TikTok is Telegram. Telegram is based in Dubia and was founded by Pavel Durov. Pavel was originally a Russian citizen, but due to run-ins with the Russian state he has obtained citizenship from several countries including the UAE where Telegram is based in Dubai. The platform permits the establishment of groups as well as messaging. It allows extremely diverse postings, for example, hosting both pro-Russian and pro Ukrainian groups. Censorship is minimal. It is certainly outside Western state control. On Telegram you will see, for example, the horrific videos of dead Palestinian babies that you will not see in Western MSM. Why is this important? It will give you an understanding of the rage against the US and Israel in the Arab and Muslim world as well as the global South. You will understand that they do not hate us for our freedom as President Bush declaimed, but for something simpler, our support for pure mass murder.
Elon Musk’s X platform generally provides a wide range of views. Debate among different sides can be quite open and intense. That said, as mentioned above, it is always under intense pressure from the government and various lobby groups to curtail this debate, sometimes successfully. The main weapon used against X is financial meaning persuading advertisers from purchasing ads on the platform in order to strangle it financially. There is always the additional danger to X from law makers who threaten various legal moves to throttle it. Various NGOs and other organizations threaten to sue the platform for posts they feel threaten them and their viewpoint. These are the dangers to any US or Western based platform. Finally, it appears that “unpopular” contributors are often subject to bot attacks meaning clouds of low quality negative posts designed to clog up target postings and authors.
YouTube itself allows limited opposition to mainstream narratives as long as the authors chose their words carefully and do not seriously threaten the current narrative. This approach is aided by the subtle and not so subtle shadow banning of these sites, so they never grow too big.
It is also possible to directly visit the official Russian news websites Sputnik and RT even though their broadcast licenses have been revoked in Europe and the US. It’s important to see what the other side in a conflict has to say. As we get a distorted sense of reality through Western media, putting East and West viewpoints next to one another helps all of us try and understand what is really happening in the world.
Rumble is a relatively new alternative to You Tube. It is growing fast and is popular with commentators who have been driven off legacy platforms. Most of the authors cited below can be found on Rumble. Rumble is an independent video service where users can upload their content without the worry of being censored that comes with the use of sites like YouTube or Facebook. Two years ago Rumble acquired Locals, a subscription only platform that allows independent content creators to publish their content, engage with their supporters and make money from subscriptions.
Substack is one of the oldest subscription based independent platforms not controlled by big tech. Its’ journalists, bloggers, writers, etc. seek independence to express themselves without being subject to the fast growing network of government backed censors. Unlike Rumble, it is mostly print based, but is adding more and more video capability. Most of the authors cited below can be found on Substack.
Specific commentators to follow.
There are an unlimited number of commentators to peruse on the net. More appear daily. Some are tinfoil hat crackpots, and some are artificial bots meant to spam and gum up legitimate debate. I’ve made a list of those that I think are reliable and thoughtful commentators on the events of the day. It isn’t necessary to agree with what they say in every case. In fact, I would say it’s healthy to be skeptical. Nevertheless they provide a helpful alternative to the mainstream media narrative.
Glen Greenwald The grand master of alternative news. He is a Pulitzer Prize winner and author of several New York Times best seller books. Acclaimed by the left when he attacked Republicans but now seen as a right winger since he began to point out problems with the left’s stand on First Amendment issues and various wars that the establishment, both left and right, have promoted in recent years. He is extremely articulate and uses his enemies own words and deeds against them. His programs on Rumble and Locals are well documented. He continually attacks the abject failure of mainstream media to actually do journalism. He sees them as mere extension of the ruling class which has no real ideology other than staying in power and increasing US hegemony. He is also a political force in Brazil where he is currently based. His investigative journalism there has uncovered major scandals on both sides of the political spectrum there.
Tucker Carlson Perhaps the most influential commentator of the twenty first century. Originally seen as a right wing political force. He gradually moved to a more populist one might say independent viewpoint. He was finally driven from Fox when he drifted too far from their orthodox Republican and right wing ideology. He is articulate and passionate. His viewpoint is independent of any political party and is trusted by a huge number of Americans. Since leaving Fox his programing is found on Elon Musk’s X and his own web channel.
Jeffery Sacks A one man foreign office. Advisor to numerous countries both East and West. He is University Professor and Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University. He is President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, Co-Chair of the Council of Engineers for the Energy Transition, Commissioner of the UN Broadband Commission for Development,. He has been Special Advisor to three United Nations Secretaries-General, and currently serves as an SDG Advocate under Secretary General António Guterres. He spent over twenty years as a professor at Harvard University, where he received his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees. Sachs has received 42 honorary doctorates, the Legion of Honor by decree of the President of the Republic of France. He has had several books on the New York Times best sellers list. His most recent books are The Ages of Globalization: Geography, Technologies and Institutions. His calls to the White House will always be taken. His website https://www.jeffsachs.org/newspaper-articles contains the most recent of his articles on current events in Ukraine and Gaza.
John Mearsheimer is an American political scientist and international relations scholar. He is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago. He has made numerous appearances on Chicago Public TV, CNN, NPR, and NewsHour. He has also written many articles that have appeared in academic journals like International Security, and popular magazines like Foreign Affairs and the London Review of Books. Furthermore he has written op-ed pieces for newspapers like the New York Times and the Financial Times dealing with topics like Bosnia, nuclear proliferation, US policy towards India, the failure of Arab Israeli peace efforts, the folly of invading Iraq, the causes of the Ukrainian crisis, and the likelihood of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. He is the author of numerous books which have won prizes and appeared on the NYT best seller list.
Michael Shellenberger Well know and highly respected author and commentator or political and environmental issues of the day. He has testified in front of Congress on multiple occasions. Michael Shellenberger is a Time Magazine "Hero of the Environment," Green Book Award winner, Dao Journalism Prize-winner, Founder-President of Environmental Progress, Founder of Public, and C.B.T. Chair of Politics, Censorship, and Free Speech at the University of Austin. He is the best-selling author of San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities (HarperCollins 2021) and Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All (HarperCollins 2020).
Max Blumenthal Well known political commentator, editor of The Greyzone. He has testified in Congress and at the UN on Ukraine. He has commented extensively on the war in Gaza.
Alexander Mercouris. He syntheses the day’s events in these conflicts and provides not only the big picture regarding international relations, but insightful political analysis of domestic activities of each of the main players. He has a pro-Russian bias but supports his views by quoting Western media and comments from Western politicians and experts. About 60% of his information comes from Western mainstream media sources, 10% from Western government sources, 20% from official Russian and Chinese sources, and the rest from a constellation of independent bloggers, many, but not all of whom are pro-Russian. If anyone wishes to contest his observations and conclusions, they had better be prepared with hard data. He is not afraid to call out Russian propaganda that he thinks it’s misinformation or disinformation (can you imagine Anderson Cooper or Christin Amanpour doing the same for Western government propaganda?). He is also very diffident and often corrects something he said previously if it turns out to be wrong. He doesn’t claim to be a military expert and says he has trouble reading maps due to poor eyesight.
If he is a Russian propaganda construct it must be the most underplayed but sophisticated in history. His studio appears to be an office in a small home or apartment in England. You can hear the doorbell ring, dogs barking, and babies crying in the background. He never shows a graphic or video. It’s only his talking head. Most astonishing to me is the fact that he has several ticks and stutters. In this he resembles Emperor Claudius from the TV series of the same name. It is painful to watch him, but like Claudius his intelligence and insight comes through. If someone is paying him, it can’t be very much. He wears the same, not so clean, worn sweatshirt in every program. And yet his daily, more than an hour length show aggregates an enormous amount of material gleaned from news sources around the world in multiple languages. In addition, he has another show called The Duran with his partner Alex Christoforou. Furthermore, he hosts interviews with top tier political analysts like Jeffery Sacks and John Mearsheimer. I don’t see how he could do this on his own. There are not enough hours in the day for one person to research the material he uses. So, he probably getting assistance from someone somewhere somehow, but I haven’t figured it out. His persona is the opposite of any other influencer on the Internet.
Matt Taibi Well known award winning journalist and author. He was a staff writer at Rolling Stone Magazine for years and was considered a leftist until he started questioning the mainstream medias’ collapse into a mouthpiece for the elites and deep state that sometimes appear to now run the country. He received a great deal of positive (and negative) publicity for his investigative work on the Twitter files. He has testified in front of Congress on First Amendment issues. He is a brilliant writer but not much of a public speaker.
Simplicius the Thinker Named after a fourth century BC Greek philosopher who wrote commentaries on earlier philosophers. He provides extremely detailed analysis of Russian military tactics, equipment, and battlefield strategy. He is able to point out mistakes and weaknesses on both sides. There is no comparable source of information and insight on the Western side. As is the case with Alexander Mercouris I wonder where he gets his information from.
Brian Berletic A geopolitical and military analyst on You Tube and Twitter, his reporting is insightful and detailed. Although he is a US citizen and a former Marine his reporting has a pro-Russian flavor, but he backs up his conclusions with facts.
Jackson Hinkle Wikipedia describes him as “…an American political commentator and social media influencer, who hosts the political show The Dive with Jackson Hinkle” it then goes on to a very long hit piece about this individual. Given Wikipedia’s capture by the woke community this is a strong endorsement of his independence of the MSM.
Sal Mercogliano, the creator of “What’s Going On With Shipping” found on YouTube. It’s a must to understand how commercial shipping, the lifeblood of the world’s economy works. If you want a real understanding of the effects of the Red Sea blockade by the Houthis, low water levels in the Mississippi, fires on car transport ships, collisions, etc. Sal is the man to consult. You’ll learn how current events affect the cost of everything sold, in large part by the ability to ship goods around the world safely and cheaply. You will learn how the ownership and control (not often the same thing) of shipping is hidden by layers of shell companies and flags of convenience.