Western Standard boss Derek Fildebrandt talks floundering Canadian legacy media

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Canadian journalism is in an extremely concerning place right now. It isn’t just that progressively-inclined academics and their friends are prominent in the media landscape, although that is clearly true. There is something more insidious at play causing the news to… well… no longer be news.

Everyone has their biases, make no mistake, and people tend to align themselves with media that more closely aligns with their values. But what happens when the biases of all media outlets are no longer their own, and rather those of an overreaching and ideologically controlling government that is willing to spend billions to manipulate what you read and see?

For a while, trusting the news as they always have, people bought in and believed what they saw, but eventually when the reports and reality don’t line up, people begin to ask questions. Some will inevitably carry on trusting and even trumpeting the mainstream media, but as we are seeing in Canada, legacy media that is no longer concerned with the truth loses viewership and becomes increasingly dependent on government funding to survive.

This downward spiral of abandoning journalistic integrity in pursuit of federal bail out bucks has two potential outcomes:

1. The death of legacy media.
2. Legacy media becoming de facto state broadcasters that no one watches.

Fortunately, the failing mainstream is no longer consumers' only option, and alternative and independent media primarily focused on reporting, rather than securing government paycheques, are on the rise. Rebel News was very much at the vanguard of this trend, but we are certainly not alone in providing a look at the world unbeholden to federal agencies.

Rebel News joined Derek Fildebrandt, president of one of the other truly independent outlets, The Western Standard, to talk about the categorical failings of so many mainstream media groups to live up to their journalistic duties and the ideological wokeness that has overridden any sense of responsible reporting. We also talked about the massive increase in viewership and interaction for organizations like Western Standard and Rebel News.

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