EVERYONE IS A JOURNALIST OR NOBODY IS

Once upon a time, many years ago, I was paid by a major national newspaper to
write some articles. It seemed that overnight I had become a journalist. But it wasn't until  I was sacked that I became a journalist. Once I was sacked, nobody could tell me what to write, and nobody could stop me reporting the truth.

I learned a wonderful lesson from that experience. Being paid does not make you a journalist. Reporting the truth does. Thanks to the internet you don't need anyone's money or permission to report what you see, hear and learn. You are a journalist too - if you choose to be- and nobody can stop you.  But believe me, they will try very hard to bury your truth  beneath an avalanche of their lies.

Today, not a single honest journalist works for a so-called 'major' newspaper. Anyone who is being paid to write by a 'major' newspaper should be treated as what they really are - a mouthpiece for the boss. Most real reporters are either unpaid or kept afloat by personal appeals to their readers.
In reality, the newspaper business is dead and buried. 

Only a tiny number of people actually buy newspapers, and most people who do are simply too old to break the habit. All of the 'major' newspapers from the Times down are completely bankrupt. They exist for only one purpose. That is, to endlessly repeat the lies that protect the billionaires from you. 

CLIMATE CHANGE WILL KILL US ALL 

DIVERSITY IS OUR STRENGTH 

UNLIMITED MIGRATION IS BRILLIANT

TRANSVESTITE CHILDREN ARE BRILLIANT

MEN ARE TOXIC

Millions are spent every day repeating ridiculous slogans like these, hammering the words into the empty heads of people too lazy to read beyond a headline. It works particularly well on kids.

But such obvious lies need to be endlessly repeated, or else they will die. So now, to save the lies, the TV 'journalists' interview the newspaper journalists. This lets everyone pretend the Guardian and the Times are printing pages as opposed to toilet-rolls. Naturally, every paper contains exactly the same lies trumpeted by TV, but if they all hold hands and sing together then it must be true, innit?

In reality, any reporter employed by a Fleet Street rag will be sacked the moment their writing deviates one degree from the officially correct viewpoint. Their so-called 'editors' have one very simple job  - to make sure every writer pushes every story in the proper direction. 

You see, 'news' is not the purpose any more. News is beside the point.  For a modern 'professional journalist', every story is the same thing - it's a piece of clay, waiting to be shaped and turned into a piece of ammunition. Every story is an arrow waiting to be fired. If the weather's too hot, that's... climate change. Too cold -it's... climate change. Black kids are carrying machetes because... white people are racist. The NHS is overrun with too many sick people so the answer is... more immigration.
In the bizarro world of modern news media, up is down and two plus two equals five.         

But the lies will die without repetition, so now the newspaper journalists have to  interview the TV journalists, because everyone's a journalist in front of  a BBC or SKY camera.  To protect the lies, the TV stations employ actors who lounge in armchairs being plastered with makeup while the 'news' they are paid to read is being written elsewhere. Because reading a  teleprompter out loud makes you a journalist.

As I said at the beginning, everyone's a journalist, or nobody is. Perhaps you would like to be a journalist yourself. There is no reason why you shouldn't start right now, today. Journalism is an activity, not a job. You don't need to be bribed with a carrot to report the truth. All you have to do is walk around with your eyes open. Look at your street, your village, your town, your city. Listen to what people say and watch what they are doing. Think about what you see and hear.

And then tell someone else. Tell two people, or ten. Speak the truth out loud, when you feel it must be spoken. Forget the official viewpoints, forget the lies. Do not allow the lazy, stoned and stupid to shout you down with slogans they learned from Quackspeak Headquarters. There is no 'correct' way to see things. There is only reality. Tell the truth about the world in which you live. It's a very different place to the fantasy world where the big lies are grown.            

And the sense of freedom is overwhelming.

But please, don't ever make the mistake of taking a job at a newspaper. That's the very last place you'll find a journalist.

IAN ANDREW-PATRICK