Recently a number of people have asked me something to the effect of “So if you don’t take the mainstream media at face value, and you don’t feel like you are on one political team or the other, then who DO you listen to?” A very fair question! I tend to listen to and consider people who are iconoclastic, or who have their own inherent complexity or contradictions, or that have been “cancelled” by the mainstream but have gone off on their own, freshly unfettered without much else to lose. I don’t agree with everything that they (or anyone?) say or write, but here is a list of 12 voices that I often find to be interesting, informative, engaging, challenging and/or provocative. I realize that many of these folks have journeyed from left towards right and not really the other way around. The fact that my list is that way is likely a combination of my own journey and the way in which cancel-culture has operated in recent years. Come to think of it, I would love to find some new voices like these that have traveled from right to left, so please, somebody, recommend some!
Krystal & Saagar
Matt Taibbi
Isaac Saul
Glenn Greenwald
John Wood Jr
Dave Rubin
Tracy Beanz
Catherine Austin Fitts
Bari Weiss
Steve Krakauer
John Solomon
Megyn Kelly
Krystal & Saagar - A beautiful white progressive woman and a nerdy brown conservative man make the unlikeliest of cohosts, but Krystal & Saagar shatter their own stereotypes. Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti were the cohosts of a show called Rising for many years on The Hill, but in June of 2021 they went fully independent together in a new show called “Breaking Points” (https://breaking-points.simplecast.com/). They share a deep belief in populism but often differ on how people can be most successful in society through business and government.
Matt Taibbi - Rolling Stone is a music magazine, but is also well known for covering presidential elections, and Matt Taibbi covered five of those as a contributor. He also wrote Hate Inc.: How, And Why The Press Makes Us Hate One Another, which is NOT the kind of thing that magazines are known for pointing out. He now writes at TK Media (https://taibbi.substack.com/) and co-hosts an irreverent podcast called Useful Idiots. You can almost hear him shaking his head quizzically when Matt Taibbi talks on podcasts about how the media has covered topics like the 2016 and 2020 elections. He looks for truth and facts, while he points out how most of the media is looking to drive home a specific narrative or point of view regardless of how accurate it may be.
Isaac Saul - As a freelance writer working in North America, Central America, Europe and Asia and contributing to TIME, VOX, The New York Daily News and elsewhere, Isaac Saul saw, heard and learned much about the complexity of the world and its stories, and got sick of the one-sided and divisive reporting of today’s journalism. So he imagined and created Tangle (https://www.readtangle.com/) with this basic format: one big issue per newsletter where he goes over what the right is saying, what the left is saying, and what his take is on the situation. Isaac Saul is also dedicated to reading and replying to the emails of his readers (try him!) and frequently posts updates to his takes after hearing what readers have to say.
Glenn Greenwald - It’s really something when you get into a pissing match with the media company that you started, but that is exactly what happened with The Intercept and Glenn Greenwald. So what did he do? He went out on his own, again, on Substack (https://greenwald.substack.com/). Glenn Greenwald was the guy at The Guardian who wrote about the NSA based on his source Edward Snowden . He’s written books and gotten a Pulitzer Prize. In other words, he’s a journalist’s journalist. But he dares to question today’s narratives and now he’s treated like kryptonite. Glenn Greenwald always has interesting things to say.
John Wood Jr - A prolific, measured, calm and thoughtful speaker and writer, John Wood Jr has emerged as one of the primary voices for Braver Angels (https://braverangels.org/author/johnbetter-angels-org/), an organization dedicated to bridging today’s divides between black and white, republican and democrat, left and right. As a black conservative, he has an interesting perspective and embodies the bridges that the organization strives to build. In 2021 Braver Angels faced an existential test as their supporters on the right wanted to talk about the integrity and legitimacy of the 2020 election, while many of their supporters on the left didn’t even want to give the question itself any legitimacy. John Wood Jr. has been one of the facilitators of that delicate conversational journey.
Dave Rubin - As a gay liberal, he was accepted and admired by the mainstream until he started questioning the direction that the left was going. In 2013, Dave Rubin started The Rubin Report (https://rubinreport.com/) podcast where his views as a classical liberal have ever since been challenged, firmed up, evolved and articulated through interviews with independent-thinkers from all kinds of backgrounds. Dave Rubin also saw social media divisiveness and censorship coming from a long ways off and quietly worked to create a new type of social media platform at Locals.com where people pay a minimal subscription fee for the privilege of posting and commenting on other people’s work. Locals.com is therefore a friendly place where people pay a few bucks a month to their favorite creators in order to connect with them and fellow fans directly.
Tracy Beanz - You can hear it in her voice … the New Yorker mom, the passionate libertarian advocate who organized for Ron Paul, and now the demanding, ambitious editor of an up-and-coming news website … Tracy Beanz is fiery and serious and goofy from one moment to the next. Her website is “UncoverDC” (https://uncoverdc.com/) and she is the cohost of the “Dark to Light” podcast with Frank Val, a rock-and-roll drummer turned family man and YouTuber. Frank and Beanz chat three times a week about elections, society, liberty and other conservative topics.
Catherine Austin Fitts - From the little Wikipedia blurb about her: “Catherine Austin Fitts is an American investment banker and former public official who served as managing director of Dillon, Read & Co. and as United States Assistant Secretary of Housing and Urban Development for Housing during the Presidency of George H.W. Bush.” You’d never guess that her website The Solari Report (https://home.solari.com/) is the best place to learn about the breakaway civilization of the uber-rich-and-powerful, the tapeworm of the American central banking system or the $21 trillion dollars that is missing (but spent!) from the federal budget. Catherine Austin Fitts speaks with a calm authority as she blows your mind, and usually the mind of whoever is interviewing her.
Bari Weiss - Talk about a rough break-up … Bari Weiss published her letter of resignation to The New York Times on her website (https://www.bariweiss.com/) and talks about her experience of low-key antisemitism, bullying and control from colleagues and higher-ups. To say she was cancelled is an understatement. But Bari Weiss has more to say now that she is out on her own. She writes about Israel, the U.S., and other global situations. Bari Weiss also writes powerfully about being Jewish and a woman in today’s world and climate. Love her or hate her (people do both), she pulls no punches and calls things like she sees them.
Steve Krakauer - He says it perfectly himself: “For 10 years, I was in the media – with stops at CNN, Fox News, NBC, TheBlaze, Mediaite and TVNewser. It is because I love the media that it so pains me to see what it has become, particularly in the past 4 years. The introspection-free, self-serious, geographically-insulated apparatus that feeds most of what counts as “the media” these days has sadly lost its way.” And so Steve Krakauer writes the email newsletter The Fourth Watch (http://www.fourthwatch.media) and also The Fourth Watch podcast (https://art19.com/shows/the-fourth-watch-podcast). It is often very meta, since it is a media show about the media show. But it also digs into relevant topics being covered by the media.
John Solomon - He came across as kind of soft-spoken, reasonable and boring during his career at The Washington Post, The Washington Times, The Daily Beast, FOX News and The Hill, but when John Solomon began really digging into the DOJ special counsel investigation of Donald Trump and then Ukraine, he moved far enough from the mainstream media narrative to be labelled “misinformation” even by FOX News. John Solomon created his own network called Just The News (https://justthenews.com/) where the style and language are often boring, but the reporting focuses on content that the mainstream media refuses to touch, including election integrity, government corruption and world affairs. Just The News is expanding into podcasts and newscasts.
Megyn Kelly - Remember her? She’s the Fox News anchor who butted heads with Donald Trump early on in the campaign when she asked Trump about his disdain for women, and he said “only Rosy O’Donnell”. Then she went to NBC but only briefly, because she got cancelled for wondering out loud why her white friend’s young daughter couldn’t put on make-up to trick-or-treat as a black pop star that she loved. After getting burned by the right and the left, Megyn Kelly has gone out on her own by creating Devil May Care Media and The Megyn Kelly Show (https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow). Today … she often says that she feels free to actually say what she thinks, in ways that she never could on network TV. She has big name guests, and gets into some pretty interesting and surprising conversations.
So there’s my list … the voices of 12 people that many, many other people would tell you never to listen to for this reason or that reason. I can’t help it. I want to seek out alternate views and ideas. Sometimes these people say or report on crazy things. So I believe it is always a good idea to click the links, look at the sources, search for context, find the more complete story, use critical thinking and discernment. The Truth really is out there. We just have to do some work to find it.
