Guest Post by John Stossel
“I’m not going to let them bully me out of reporting,” said Tim Pool after recording an Antifa protest where angry activists cursed at him. There might have been violence, but Antifa’s “de-escalation team” protected him, he says.
That surprised me. “Antifa has a de-escalation team?” I ask Pool in my latest internet video.
“They have people who try and make sure nobody from their side starts it — because cameras are rolling,” he answered.
Pool is part of the new media that now cover stories the mainstream media often miss.
I’ve become part of that new media, too. I still work at Fox, but now most of my video views (117 million plus) come from short videos I post on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Pool considers himself a man of the left. He supported Bernie Sanders and once worked for Vice. But now he often finds himself criticizing his fellow leftists.
“This really strange faction of people on the left are saying ridiculous things,” he says. “They’re helping Donald Trump.”
Trump probably does gain support when people watch street protests turn violent.
“Look at this protest in Portland,” recounts Pool. “A Bernie Sanders supporter showed up with an American flag — to protest fascists. What did Antifa do? Crack him over the head with a club.”
Pool won new followers with his coverage of the Washington, D.C., conflict between a Native American protestor and Covington, Kentucky, high school teens wearing Trump hats, including one who looked like he was smirking.
“All these big news outlets, even The Washington Post, CNN, they immediately made the assumption ‘He must be a racist sneering at this Native American man’,” says Pool. “I didn’t make that assumption… I just see a guy banging a drum and a kid with a weird look on his face.”
Pool and Reason TV’s Robby Soave were the rare journalists who bothered to examine more of the videos.
“The initial narrative that we heard from the activists was that this kid got in this man’s face… It’s actually the other way around,” Pool said. “No one else watched the video.”
No one? Major news outlets said the student was racist without ever examining the full video?
“Here’s what happens,” Pool explains. “One left-wing journalist says, ‘Look at this racist!’ His buddy sees it and says, ‘Wow, look at this racist.’ And that’s a big ol’ circular game of telephone where no one actually does any fact-checking. Then The New York Times, Washington Post, CNN all publish the same fake story.”
Although Pool made those big-name outlets look like irresponsible amateurs, he doesn’t have a journalism degree. In fact, he didn’t even finish high school. He dropped out of school and just started videotaping what interested him, funding his videos with ads and donations from viewers.
“I want to know why things are happening. Some people don’t trust the media. I don’t know who to believe. Why don’t I just go there and see for myself?”
That’s brought him more than a million internet subscribers.
It’s also made him an advocate for free speech.
“When I was growing up, it was the religious conservatives that had the moral panic about music and swear words. But today the moral panic is coming from the left. Today, the left shows up with torches and burns free speech signs.”
I’m glad there are young journalists like Pool, who still value open debate.
Actually, we have lots of new media options today.
Joe Rogan’s podcast covers viewpoints from all sides. He has won a huge audience.
Dave Rubin reports on YouTube from a classical liberal perspective.
Naomi Brockwell covers how tech is changing the world.
On the right, Ben Shapiro, Steven Crowder and Candace Owens irreverently critique my New York City neighbors’ sacred cows.
On the left, Sam Harris has attracted a big podcast following by discussing all kinds of ideas, and Jimmy Dore takes a principled left-wing stand.
I don’t agree with all those new media people. I very much disagree with some of them. But I’m glad they are out there, giving us more choice.
It is my sincere desire to provide readers of this site with the best unbiased information available, and a forum where it can be discussed openly, as our Founders intended. But it is not easy nor inexpensive to do so, especially when those who wish to prevent us from making the truth known, attack us without mercy on all fronts on a daily basis. So each time you visit the site, I would ask that you consider the value that you receive and have received from The Burning Platform and the community of which you are a vital part. I can't do it all alone, and I need your help and support to keep it alive. Please consider contributing an amount commensurate to the value that you receive from this site and community, or even by becoming a sustaining supporter through periodic contributions. [Burning Platform LLC - PO Box 1520 Kulpsville, PA 19443] or Paypal
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So, what happens when cameras aren’t rolling?
The socks with the locks inside swing into aaction.
Wow, TBP has made the big time. It is finally big enough to attract the zero hedge trolls.
This video portrays it well.
Antifi is the polar opposite of what it claims to be and behaves more like a Marxist fascist organization with the objective of shutting down free speech. It is clearly well funded and organized with a core group of masked leaders supported by a combination of willing accomplices and useful idiots. These “shock troops” are effectively deployed around the US in well planned protests to shut down conservative and freedom voices. The key to understanding Antifi is to identify the major money behind this organization. George Soros is known to fund Antifi but there are are probably other sources of funding who remain anonymous. Antifi is also global with chapters in most/all major cities and can be rapidly deployed to attack anyone questioning the Marxist narrative on a range of subjects including displacement immigration, Islam, sexual orientation and radical feminism. They clearly have the high-level support of government because of the failure of police, who appear to have been given a stand-down order, to arrest members of Antifi for clear attacks on individuals exercising their right(?) to free speech. This has been well documented in numerous YouTube videos where individuals are attacked right in front of the police who do absolutely nothing. A recent example captured on a YouTube video is Tommy Robinson who is attacked while canvasing for election in the UK. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C11BshLSn94&t=792s
unfortunately,according to this article at blacklistednews.com julian assange is being tortured by the us govt.’s “antifa brigade”–they’re saying he is being drugged & chemically lobotomized–
https://www.blacklistednews.com/article/72537/julian-assange-tortured-with-psychotropic.html
Ha. He just found YouTube.
John Swinton was a journalist writing in 1880 and even at that time the mass media was corrupt. Sadly, it is even worse today such that you can almost assume the truth is the polar opposite of what is promoted by the Main Stream Media…at least in regard to the substantive issues of the day. The good news is that a growing majority of the people are aware of this fact which is why they are refusing to watch the nightly news on TV, cancelling their newspaper subscriptions and have stopped listening to propaganda radio programs. There is an explosion of news and views by independent, highly knowledgeable, fair and balanced journalists and well informed individuals accessible via the internet who have not sold their souls for 30 pieces of silver.
John Swinton (1829–1901) was a Scottish-American journalist, newspaper publisher, and orator. Although he arguably gained his greatest influence as the chief editorial writer of The New York Times during the decade of the 1860s, Swinton is best remembered as the namesake of John Swinton’s Paper, one of the most prominent American labor newspapers of the 1880s. Swinton would also serve as chief editorialist of the New York Sun during two stints totaling more than a dozen years.
“There is no such thing, at this date of the world’s history, 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 opinions 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 journalist is to destroy the truth; to lie outright; to pervert; to vilify; to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell the country 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 the 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.”
-John Swinton, a toast before the New York Press Club, 1880