An inflection point for (real) journalism across the (former) "free world"
Jul 10, 2026 4:33 am
I am convinced that we have reached an important fork in the road for the profession known as "journalism".
This is to be expected given the 2020s are characterised by forks in the road for every aspect of human existence as I have written about here.
REAL journalism has reached a fork in the road & thus continuing on the current path is no longer possible
There are two main factors that converge to make this specific point in time a fork in the road for journalism:
The rapidly diminishing trust by most people (even those who can otherwise be characterised as "normies") in legacy media of all type and political persuasion while it is also becoming increasingly evident that alternative media is also often used for advancing various agendas; and
The meteoric rise of AI generated content (a.k.a. AI slop) across all major social media platforms (yes, that includes Substack) coupled with rapidly increasing use of AI in journalism and more specifically, cases in which AI performs all tasks in the lifecycle of a piece of journalism starting from research, information collation and resource validation and through to compilation, production and dissemination of the completed piece of content (be it written, audio or video). In case you wonder, this is not just restricted to written content and images with many online videos and podcasts now entirely AI generated with little to no human involvement.
As is the case with any fork in the road, continuing with the "steady as she goes" attitude is no longer possible. That path has literally come to an end.
Where to from here?
Well, a fork in the road usually has two different paths that continue on from it. When it comes to journalism, here are the two main routes things can go from here:
Shilling (by both real humans and AI generated humans) & AI slop completely takes over; or
People fund directly REAL journalism (by REAL humans doing REAL work....which I do not consider "prompting" some AI to be in that category) and those they fund are then beholden to them (and ONLY them) and if they betray that trust, they are done as they literally have no other way to stay afloat...by design!
It is interesting to note that it was none other than the WEF who have sounded the alarm about this almost 3 years ago now in October 2023 but as is always the case, their primary way to address that is through regulation (i.e. more power to the ruling class):
Collective action is needed to advance safety online, tackling the abuse of user-generated comments, identifying malicious actors spreading disinformation, demonetizing fake news, and disincentivizing the creation of echo chambers for extremist perspectives. This requires the adoption of advanced technology solutions and the development of national policies. The World Economic Forum's Global Coalition for Digital Safety is a public-private platform aimed at innovating and collaborating to tackle harmful content and conduct online.
So basically it is the WEF and their "stakeholders" who will come to our 'rescue' and fix everything.
We have all seen this 'movie' before and all hopefully know by now how it ends.
I like my solution in point #2 above much better than how the WEF proposes to approach this. What about you?
While it is absolutely CRUCIAL that you always think for yourself and not trust blindly anything any media person or outlet is telling you, it is the job of journalists to provide you with accurate factual information without fear or favour. The "accurate" part requires skill & inclination while also taking time do properly (unlike posting AI slop without any verification).
There is a very famous quote attributed to Walter Lippman that goes like this:
There can be no higher law in journalism than to tell the truth and shame the devil
It is worth mentioning that the bolded part of the above quote is not Lippman's own and was first coined by the preacher Hugh Latimer in 1555.
Another thing worth mentioning is that Lippman was a propagandist who thought it was the job of media to "influence public opinion" (a.k.a. "nudging") which is something I profoundly disagree with.
However, I DO agree very very strongly with the "tell the truth" part. I also think that taking concrete action on the truth is a much more productive endeavour (hence they name Actionable Truth) than "shaming the devil" but that's a discussion for another time.
Without real people funding real journalism done by real people we will end up fairly quickly (a couple of years at most) with what is outlined here:
(Funnily enough, Twitter/X is the one place where the bleak endgame discussed above has effectively already arrived with many people resorting to asking Grok to tell them what the truth is)
Furthermore, it is not even enough for journalism to be done by "real people". Journalism is not just another profession and there is a reason it is:
The only business in America specifically protected by the Constitution
While I don't think that journalists are supposed to be the sole source of Truth, it is their task to facilitate Truth in society through accurate & unbiased reporting and unwavering commitment to do so without fear or favour.
This is effectively impossible to do when you have advertisers, sponsors, various Political Action Committees, political parties, shareholders or investors keeping them afloat and thus ultimately deciding what they report on and how.
I am now convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is only ONE funding model that can facilitate that:
Direct funding of (truly) independent media by the very same people who consume their reporting.
This also means that a certain level of consolidation in the (truly) independent media space is inevitable. I don't see that as a negative but rather welcome that and feel that such consolidation can enable some truly great things to happen as I explain here:
I personally disagree with what Dan Cohen is saying here because I simply cannot see how REAL journalism can be done as a "public service" while those who do that type of work "look elsewhere for primary income".
Can you see any other important profession operating like that...not to mention the one which is "the only business in America specifically protected by the Constitution"?
Furthermore, longform investigative journalism, which is my personal jam, takes a huge amount of both time and effort if done right. As an example, this piece took a few weeks to put together as did this one while this one took almost 3 months to research and put together.
I just can't see how doing that 'on the side' is possible...or ever will be without cutting corners or 'outsourcing' some of the work to AI, which I personally vehemently refuse to do.
What I personally plan to do?
Few things:
While I am committed to continue making most of my journalism available to people regardless of whether they are paying for it or not, I will be putting more stuff behind a paywall going forward with about an 80% free and 20% paid split.
Even for the free portion of my work, more will be only available to signed-in members (either free or paid) of my website. This is primarily because scraping by AI is becoming a real problem.
I will give it until the end of this year (2026) to see whether I can sustain this type of work and more importantly, assess whether the work I am doing is moving the needle at all in terms of humanity prevailing in the current world war we are in. So far I feel this is not the case. This is unfortunate but it is also the truth.
That final point will be the key determining factor in whether Actionable Truth Media will continue into 2027.
So yes, I absolutely ask for your support (financial and otherwise) but I also ask you to support truly Independent media in general, even if it's not me.
However, If you do want to support my work, now is a good time to jump onboard.
Mid-year discount offer
As I announced in my last email, I am currently offering 15% off when prepaying for 12 months in advance. This 15% discount applies for the first year only.
These discounted memberships are available until July 15.
You prepaying for a year means I have more certainty which allows me to plan more content ahead of time and commit more resources, first & foremost being time.
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Actionable Take is changing to better serve you
As I mentioned in my last email, going forward the Actionable Take broadcasts will change as follows:
No more livestreams. All episodes will be pre-recorded;
This content will be available exclusively to paying subscribers (on any of the paid tiers); and
It is those paid subscribers who will decide what topic each Actionable Take will cover, as well as how often such Actionable Takes will be released.
#1 is the result of direct feedback I received with people struggling to make it to the Livestreams or finding it cumbersome to engage during a Live Broadcast.
#3 is also the result of direct feedback I received whereby some people felt they are a bit overwhelmed and feel they are unable to consume the Actionable Takes in a timely manner, and thus unable to gain the full benefit given Actionable Takes are often time sensitive in nature.
All paid subscribers, through either the website or the private community, will get an email in mid-July, after the current promotion ends, with a link to a private page where you can suggest topics for the next Actionable Take as well as the frequency you'd like to see these episodes being released.
This is so that you are not overwhelmed and have time to digest the content & implement any action steps that are applicable.
Once I have at least 3 topics proposed, I may add one of my own to the mix (if I think there is something that is especially pertinent at the time) and then put all these to a vote to all the paid members.
The topic which gets the most votes will be the one I cover and each Actionable Take episode will always cover ONE topic only and be no more than one hour in length.
As already mentioned above, the discounted membership is only on offer till July 15 and available only on annual memberships (through either the website or the private community) where you prepay for 10 months and get 2 months for free.
Thanks for your support!
rrodynmac