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What Makes a Good Journalist?  

46

by Caitlin Johnstone

Editor’s Note: A reader sent this to us. No need to seek permission to reprint as you will see from this list of vows.

Vows To My Readers And Patrons

I promise to work in the highest interest, not my self interest.

I promise never to say anything that I don’t believe is true.

I promise I will always do my best to learn what is true.

I promise I will always speak the truth as I see it, without dishonestly equivocating or mitigating what I have to say.

I promise I will always speak the truth as I see it regardless of whether it will make me unpopular.

I promise I will always speak the truth as I see it regardless of whether it will make me lose patrons.

I promise I will always speak the truth as I see it even if I’m the only person in the world who sees it that way.

I promise not just to speak the truth, but to speak it as loudly as possible and get it heard by as many people as possible.

I promise to do everything I can to make sure my voice remains an effective weapon against the machine, protecting it as best I can from smears, misunderstanding and misrepresentation.

I promise that as long as I am at this gig I will keep all my online content completely free to read.

I promise that as long as I am at this gig I will keep all my online content completely free to re-publish.

I promise I will never accept money to write about a certain topic or write about a subject a certain way.

I promise that my work will remain uninfluenced by my patrons or by a desire to gain more patrons.

I promise my patronage will remain free of incentives or tiered access; everyone has the same access to all my work regardless of whether or not they support me.

I promise that giving me money for the work I do comes with no strings attached in any direction; if you fund my work you do it solely because you want to support what I’m doing, not because you’ll get any material benefits in return.

I promise that if I ever receive a Pulitzer I will livestream myself destroying it.

I promise to always choose courage over silence.

I promise to always keep learning.

I promise to always keep growing as a person.

I promise my views will change.

I promise to remain as dedicated to my inner work as I am to my outer work.

I promise to be truthful not just with you but with myself as well, to the fullest extent that my own degree of consciousness permits.

I promise to be honest and forthcoming about my failures to the fullest extent that my own degree of consciousness at the time permits.

I promise I will always fact check against my cognitive biases, even when I desperately, desperately, desperately want something to be true.

I promise to always dissemble those biases once seen.

I promise to keep honing my craft and striving to ensure that my work is always of a better quality than it was the year before.

I promise to always read and consider feedback from my readers.

I promise that I will do my best to engage people who approach me in good faith as often as I have time to do so.

I promise that I will never become one of those snooty blue-checkmark types who only pays attention to the opinions of the people they want to impress.

I promise that I will always direct my work to the people, never to high-profile individuals who I want to like me.

I promise to punch up and kiss down.

I promise to want for you whatever you want for me.

I promise to always stand on my own and never align my work with any particular faction or clique.

I promise to always do the very best I can with what I have available to me on any given day.

I promise to do everything I can to push toward life and away from death.

I promise to do everything I can to help protect the future of humanity in the most efficacious ways I can think of.

I promise to stick it to the bastards at every opportunity.

I promise to never forgive that which continues, or to forget that which the bastards could do again.

I promise to never stop fighting as long as there’s a fight to be fought.

I promise that as long as you’re in this thing with me, then I’m in this thing with you.

Thanks for reading! The best way to get around the internet

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46 COMMENTS

  1. I read Caitlin every now and then. Good read, but she is more like a investigation reporter.
    Its not possible to be a independent journalist. The dataset is simply unavailable or deliberately corrupted for the likes of me and you(jammed in it together and the data holders are not).
    I remember before the complete data slide to tech had Google also presenting ethos of not to be evil. They can now journal with wide range and the required accuracy for journaling. We have to find crumbs and weigh likelihood.
    Splitting hairs, maybe, but the Fairfax’s(used to own Sydney Morning Herald), I watched getting rolled into 24/7 mockingbird.

      • They are all DARPA Agency. Those people occasionally die but they never move on. Larry Ellison from Oracle is the private side of darpa/cia.
        Sundar may have come on board 2004 but fronts for both Google and Alphabet.
        Mark Zuckerberg has the same background and is just a front too. You just have to look at the seed money to see those are just puppets.

        • May as well mention Oracle’s operations manager Sufra Catz. She doesn’t even need a revolving door. Helped Trump’s transition team 2016 and if you watch these things you can see Trump pushing US TikTok Oracle’s way

          • With all these things I guess you only leave in a coffin …
            The corporatising of everything goes on, nation states and races are subsumed into globalism. Before we all were “property of mother england” and now, if you don’t have a pass card hanging around your neck to get into some hirise, you must be lower class.

  2. If you are working for the plutocrats you have no choice –

    Journalists – intellectual prostitutes

    One night, probably in 1880, John Swinton, then the preeminent New York journalist, was the guest of honour at a banquet given him by the leaders of his craft. Someone who knew neither the press nor Swinton offered a toast to the independent press. Swinton outraged his colleagues by replying:

    “There is no such thing, at this date of the world’s history, in America, as an independent press. You know it and I know it.

    “There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty_four hours my occupation would be gone.

    “The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it, and what folly is this toasting an independent press?

    “We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes.”

    (Source: Labor’s Untold Story, by Richard O. Boyer and Herbert M. Morais, published by United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America, NY, 1955/1979.)

    http://rense.com/general20/yes.htm

  3. I had just completed reading this when there was a knock on the door. It was a postal delivery of a book from Booktopia. King James version of the Holy Bible. I’m now going to join Riccardo Bosi’s Australia One. Kevin Woodman.

  5. Melbourne stage 4 lockdown.

    Cautions no longer be issued. $1652 fines or court summons.
    No one allowed outside 8pm to 5am except for work, medical, caregiving.
    Shopping and exercise can only be done 5km from home.
    All recreational activity is banned and only exercise, with one other person for one hour a day.
    Only one person can go shopping per household per day.
    Cafes and restaurants, takeaway only.
    All students learning from home.
    Funerals, 10 mourners.
    Weddings completely banned.
    Public transport cancelled late at night.

    ‘The increasingly few people with jobs must carry a government-issued permit indicating that they’re allowed to go to work – and even then only if your job is deemed “essential”.’

    • Seems the Authorities have stuffed up once again. “Public transport cancelled late at night.”

      Previously stated, “Nobody allowed outside 8pm to 5am except for work, medical, caregiving”. Why would public transport be available?

      Those in charge (?) are brainless zombies.

    • Ah the script is writ.
      “If you want to preserve your power indefinitely, you have to get the consent of the ruled” – Aldous Huxley

      Aldous Huxley on Technodictators
      688,907 views•Sep 13, 2016

      Aldous Huxley Describes the Dancing Shiva Image

      Lord of the dance

      • Thank you Diane – yes, a very topical book. I just finished listening to the audio reading.

        That and particularly the first video bring several things to mind – here are just a couple …

        At around 2:40 he talks about television always saying the same thing the whole time …

        (psst – “democracy” is just a tool of the capitalist oligarchy – another time)

        As emphasised over and over again in “Brave New World” Huxley was particularly bent on seeing the education of Christianity as were all Bolsheviks and communists.

        That’s why 1917 happened …

        The Final Days of the Romanovs | Faith in God to the End

        Huxley and his fellow devout eugenic brother Julian open up a whole new area for discussion – more when I can – particularly about “propaganda”.

      • Diane,
        Lord of the Dance Hymn is joyful inspiration for all seekers.
        Should be a mandatory anthem instead of vaccination.
        We live in faith and pray for everlasting truth.

    • Dan resigns citing family reasons(have not seen my mother since the solstice or “reason ‘). Brylcreem sales take a financial hit.
      Next,…..

      Your turning stones Dee, kudos

      • I think Der Kommandant has been expecting this for some time now.
        A few days ago I mentioned on these bloggs I glimpsed some video of him on morning TV looking like he wanted to cry and vomit at the same time, this must have been when he found out.
        Not found out that he wrecked people’s lives with his stupidity, but found out his career was being terminated.

      • I hear you fellow gummer, clear and present stooge. Took 2 minutes, I don’t bother with general lowlifes unless asked by kindred.
        I would say his support would encompass daily toxins imbued junky style if “mandated”… by him…he claims he can do the math…. lol as they say.

  8. “China has been built up into the biggest global superpower by the Jewish financial elite and every valuable Western technology has been shipped there.”

    We are past demoralisation point and have entered destabilisation stage.

    • Not so
      As far as I heard, the AMD computer chips are in Taiwan, and China gets jet engines from Russia because they can’t make them. Chinese do a good line in plastic novelties though.
      I heard the Intel chips were possibly being transferred to Israel so you may be partly right.

  10. No doubt, Caitlin Johnstone is a good joiurnalist.

    Further proof of that (not the we needed any), comes courtesy of this article of hers titled : ‘Assange Trial Exposes False Partisan Narratives With Focus On Trump’s War On Journalism’ :

    https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/09/no_author/assange-trial-exposes-false-partisan-narratives-with-focus-on-trumps-war-on-journalism/

    A few important passages from the article below :

    “A new article about the proceedings in The Evening Standard titled “Julian Assange ‘targeted as a political opponent of Trump administration and threatened with the death penalty’” highlights the undeniable fact that this extradition process is ONLY taking place because of a Trump administration agenda which threatens to strike a deadly blow to press freedoms around the world.

    Assange’s legal team argue that a decision was taken under President Obama not to prosecute the Wikileaks activist, but that move was overturned under Trump.

    . The Intercept‘s Glenn Greenwald explained in 2018 that the Obama administration was unable to find an avenue to prosecute Assange for the leaks which began dropping in 2010 without endangering press freedoms, yet the Trump administration worked in concert with London and Quito [Ecuador’s capital] to drag Assange out of the embassy and slam him with an extradition request.

    Greenwald explained in the Washington Post that “the Trump administration is aggressively and explicitly seeking to obliterate the last reliable buffer protecting journalism in the United States from being criminalised, a step that no previous administration, no matter how hostile to journalistic freedom, was willing to take.”

    Conversely, when you talk to those who espouse the common position of supporting both Donald Trump and Julian Assange, they are unable to wrap their head around the indisputable fact that their president is ultimately responsible for the campaign to extradite Assange and imprison him with a sentence of up to 175 years.

    They’ll claim FALSELY that this is an Obama-initiated operation. They’ll claim FALSELY that Trump, who could have issued Assange a full pardon at any time since he took office, is actually working to get Assange to America so he can pardon him.

    They’ll claim FALSELY that Assange, who’s been fighting US extradition tooth and claw for many years, is secretly working with Trump and secretly wants to come to the United States to help him.

    This is because of establishment propaganda campaigns like QAnon shaping the Assange narrative in a way that benefits the establishment.”

    That last line (Qanon, an establishment propaganda campaign, is shaping the Assange narrative) is a doozy and confirms what most objective observers have long known.

    ie: that Qanon is a PSYOP.

    That’s why Johnstone is so well respected internationally Gumshoe readers.
    She’s doesn’t pull any punches and tells it like it is.

    • … president is ultimately responsible for the campaign to extradite Assange and imprison him …

      Well maybe, Ms Johnstone, but I have no sense of any American prez being “the ultimate”. He is at least 2 layers down from the ultimate.

      Ms Johnstone, your vows are fabulous. Thank you.

    • Aspergillus Veggie, the phrase” internationally respected” is a copout, a weasel word. It is true that Johnstone is currently writing for the Russian RT website, but that site goes only so far.

      Like RT, she steers clear of or rejects two interlinked topics dear to your heart: who did 9-11 and the power and reach of AIPAC and other Jewish organisations in the USA and elsewhere. A Phil Giraldi she is not, whereby Giraldi himself does not or will not touch 9-11 either.

      I imagine her to be at bottom an old-time Blank Slatist liberal: there are for her no inborn differences between any given definable group of people e.g. races, which do not exist anyway, because with enough money and goodwill all social problems can be solved.

      And as well as thinking that people are born as Blank Slates, it may be that she is a Noble Savage fan: any non-white is more moral and worthy than a white by virtue of alleged unique suffering.

      I admit that I cant recall her ever addressing the race issue or immigration either in USA or in Aust., so I find her fine writing strangely restricted. Like viewing a wide landscape from between your fingers.

      Like many on the left such as Chomsky who love analysing social structure and have not head for forensics, I doubt she would have any time for any of the proven conspiracies; on the left, there is only Michael Parenti who has that time.

      • Agreed Scotus – that Caitlin Johnstone won’t touch 9/11 and she’s a radical leftist on some issues, so leaves much to be desired.

        That said, she’s good on Assange and she’s fanatically anti-U.S imperialism so worth following for that alone.

  11. Seeing as Johnstone brought up Glenn Greenwald in her latest article, here is the latter expounding on the malfeasance of the Trump administration in relation to the treatment of Julian Assange :

    • Just for your consideration. Glen helps “spirit” Snowden to Cold War 1.0.
      As Chris X shows early on this tread, this type of journalism is not possible. Those type of international “jumps” are not possible(within the paradigm).
      So inside player or useful idiot.

      Not sure why they had to smash those empty hard disks in the world public square, but they did. What a waste.

    • Good to see a young G Edward Griffin at the very beginning of that clip of yours Mary.

      That had to be circa the Eisenhower administration when it was filmed – or early 60’s at the most.

    • Mary,
      Tragically, the ccp is world government.
      100 million party members are now moving to desirable locations.
      Oz east coast with US west coast are one belt plan to build smart cities connected by fast train rail and road. Our passiveness is the fuel that inspires the usual suspects. Now that we are used up, all attention is on the new kids on the block. driving Bentley SUV’s with p plates etc.
      The dystopian changes are happening so quickly we can’t keep up with the pace.
      In the sixties, most Chinese were on push bikes, now it’s our turn if we are lucky to be accepted.

      • This is the first i have heard of CCP running the world. How do they get along with their predecessors? Will the latter get wiped out? That is pretty funny.

      • The Roman Empire was pretty small compared to the Anglo-Saxon-US Empire but it kicked on for centuries and its relics still exist, Latin alphabet and so forth at least. Chinese have had too much assistance provided by socialists and capitalists alike, but they are no threat and they know it. To be superpower you have to be able to project yourself in every conceivable way. Look at Russia for example, they can do small scale naval operations and they can do M.A.D. so their range on the scale is like 1, 2, 3 and then jumps up to 10. That’s enough for what they need and that’s what they can afford.
        The CCP party members you talk about are as likely escapees, the whole thing could fall apart anytime given enough economic pressure. Their idea is to catch up by applying even more rigorous communist theory, total manipulation and control. This one-dimensional stuff isn’t going to work in a hugely complex system. It relies so much on copying the work of others.

  13. Consortuim News.com gives daly updates on the Assange trial. i quote today:

    Prosecutor Lewis has followed the same tactic he’s used on every defense witness, trying to undermine their claims of being an impartial expert.

    He laid out that Eric Lewis is being paid for his testimony by the defense, and as he has with the previous defense witnesses, showed that this witness did not include a 36-page affidavit from Asst. U.S. Attorney Gordon Kromberg in his written testimony.

    James Lewis then tried to show that because Eric Lewis is not a mental health or medical professional that he had no grounds in his written testimony to say that Assange would not receive adequate health care in prison.

    The prosecutor also tried to establish that Assange would receive a fair jury trial because of the conviction of Zacarias Moussaoui in the 9/11 case. But Eric Lewis stood his ground, at times demanding that the prosecutor be fair in his questioning.

    He rebutted the Moussaoui example by correcting the prosecutor that Moussaoui was convicted in the D.C. District Court, not in the Eastern District of Virginia where Assange would be sent. “That is a very different jury pool,” witness Lewis said.

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