58 Comments
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TheScot's avatar

What you can do as a ‘lone’ journalist is to keep your brilliant reporting going and get these stories out. Remember to take time for your mental health.

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Liz Adams's avatar

I think that it is an abomination that MSM is not addressing what is happening to journalists in Gaza. Thank you for speaking up. That is the reason that I subscribe, to get your insights and opinion.

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Steve B's avatar

"You may not agree with me and that’s fine. I don’t agree with me, half the time." - haha

Turns out I agree with you pretty much all of the time, Carole. No, wait, hang on... no... yeah, it's 100% of the time. You are somehow the voice inside me which can't speak for itself so well which suddenly finds the words I wanted to say when I read yours. About all of what you write and say, really. Thank you. Truly thank you.

I detect no impostor here. Or imposter. Whichever way anyone wants to spell it.

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Marsha Coupe's avatar

Well said, Steve. Well said, indeed. Carole is a powerful voice for millions of us.

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Steve B's avatar

Thank you, Marsha. I believe Carole to be at the intersection of the most important crossways of news which directly impact our lives, that the news giants of the world won't touch. At least not properly. She has been here for us all for quite some time investigating the exploitation intents and shining bright lights down otherwise very dark roads, showing how they interconnect. Without that, I am certain I would find what is currently happening in the world paralysing and impossible to navigate.

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hw's avatar

While there are individual brilliant articles (such as the NYT piece you highlight about Adam), by and large, legacy media has utterly failed their essential role in holding power to account.

From failing to inform the public about: the inevitable economic catastrophe of Brexit, the parallels to 1930s Germany in the rise of Trumpism, the devastation of the surreally massive economic imbalances in the US and UK, the inevitable economic bubble of crypto, the looming economic bubble of AI, the context of a world with a post-democracy America, a portrait of a world rushing headlong into a global warming dystopia, etc, etc.

Valuing entertainment over journalism was a toxic choice.

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Brett Hetherington's avatar

From Wiki: "The term broligarch was first used in the mainstream media in late July 2024 in a news article in The Observer by the British journalist Carole Cadwalladr.[13]" Apart from being a pioneer in so many other fields, you're now a pioneer in public language, Carole! Nice going.

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David GORDON's avatar

Carole, why are you still on Twitter? If you argue that it is essential (and you may feel that is indeed the case), please will you also duplicate each post on Bluesky? The posts to which you refer above were only on Twitter (I understand that the oik who owns it prefers a different name). Wild horses could not drag me back to Twitter.

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Carole Cadwalladr's avatar

Hey David, I was mirroring posts to BlueSky but you’re right that I didn’t do these. I’m platform-gnostic these days. They’re all bad in different ways & they’re so many of them. Twitter still has a broader reach and I actually like the facts that there are people there I disagree with. I take your point, though

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Valid Name's avatar

I used to use Buffer to cross-post via a single post :https://buffer.com/

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David GORDON's avatar

Thank you! All fair points. Keep up the good work...... David

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jame5_wh1te's avatar

Keep up the fantastic work.

Just on point on the phrase "committing suicide". As this frames it as a crime and/or a sin, there's a move in the mental health sector away from this terminology. If it's referenced as a crime or a sin it perpetuates the stigma and makes it more difficult to talk about and prevent.

Better to state "took their own life" or "killed themselves" or "died by suicide". In a similar vein, not "successful" or "unsuccessful" or "failed" suicide attempts, but "completed" or "attempted".

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Carole Cadwalladr's avatar

Yes, quite right. Thanks for pointing this out. I’ll edit that.

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Sally Gordon-Mark's avatar

I agree, but how does the word “commit” convey a crime or sin?

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Andy Vaughan's avatar

Fair question Sally, and one I found myself asking a while back.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines "commit" as:

1. perpetrate or carry out (a mistake, crime, or immoral act).

2. pledge or bind (a person or an organisation) to a certain course or policy

Suicide used to be illegal in the UK up until 1961. Those that attempted and failed could be prosecuted and imprisoned, and the families of those that died could also potentially be prosecuted.

My understanding is that many people want to move away from these sorts of sentiments and links / associations when it comes to suicide, as they generally harm more than they help, hence the alternative phrases mentioned by James.

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Sally Gordon-Mark's avatar

Another meaning is simply to do something and the words that follow determine the sense: he committed his thoughts to paper, he committed suicide, he committed a good deed. The word “commit” itself is neutral. I’ve heard “committed suicide “ all my (long) life but never thought of it as meaning a crime happened. It’s the Church that made it a sin, not the word “commit.”

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Andy Vaughan's avatar

Yes, those phrases follow the second dictionary definition. And I’ve heard the phrase “committed suicide” all my life too… but, as with so many other things, words can take on different meanings for different people over time. And if I’ve been using a phrase that some people now find unhelpful for whatever reason, then I’m fine to use a different phrase that they find more helpful.

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Sally Gordon-Mark's avatar

Yes I agree. With time words acquire different connotations and associations.

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Jim De Young's avatar

Why do most media political stories start with D Rump fires Fed board member, when a more accurate lead would be D Rump Ignores Settled Law Once Again?

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Jo Salas's avatar

I am devastated by the deliberate massacre of journalists in Gaza--and by the msm's failure to declare unequivocal outrage. You're right: as with the genocide itself, it's a test to see how far a repressive, corrupt, murderous government can go without being stopped by world condemnation. Pretty far, it seems.

And thank you for contributing to the exposure of AI's tragic power.

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Sally Gordon-Mark's avatar

Thank you for your work. You needn’t be apologetic, because I think we are all having similar reactions to the unrelenting ugliness and brutality of current events. The amount of public figures we could trust to guide us has diminished, the ground is shaking beneath our feet.

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Nigel Cox's avatar

It takes the “lone” person to stand up and voice their view to discover that there are others with the same perspective yet to find the strength to speak. I know.

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Steve B's avatar

"How do you feel the media is faring in this darkest of episodes? Is it failing?"

Thank you for the opportunity to offer something on this, Carole. To me, failing is an understatement. Failing implies the Nerd Reich are trying. The failure is deliberate. Exploitation is rife, driven by the rabid pursuit of profit and power as priorities, to the cost of all else.

It begins with social media, now at wag the wag wagging the dog levels. The biggest social media players have earned the title antisocial media. It is hard to recognise anything of meaningful value they provide now. It's a pointless numbers game of users, money and power grabs, now including domination over a subservient news media and press.

There's only one word for media in the US and UK today: utter capitulation. Eh? That's one word?

What do we do about it? Reject capitulation media? In favour of pockets of striving brilliance?

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Marsha Coupe's avatar

'If as journalists we can’t even defend journalism, what are we even here for? And, what can I, one lone journalist, even start to do about it?’

Carol, you give voice to millions of us. You say what needs to be said clearly and concisely, day-in-and-day-out. You are an invaluable resource. Wise; intuitive; insightful; honest; vulnerable; skilful.

Most of us are on pretty tight budgets these days - and yet I will always put my media money on you because I value your expertise. You have fearlessly reported on all the top stories of the day, long before anyone else, for well over a decade. We are grateful for you.

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Steve B's avatar

Spot on, Marsha and very well put. Carole is also my number one "can't miss a word" source globally. For all the reasons you say, and especially because of an astonishing ability to predict the future and the moves of the otherwise unpredictable.

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James Abrego Garcia's avatar

"If you’re the parent of teenagers, you need to read the piece. This technology is not untested, experimental, unsafe."

Should the "not" not be there?

Keep on keeping on Carole!

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Valid Name's avatar

No, because it _is_ tested and known to be unsafe.

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James Abrego Garcia's avatar

That's not what the sentence says.

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Sally Gordon-Mark's avatar

Not only is the MSM not acknowledging the murder of journalists (who are targeted with the help of Palantir, Google and Microsoft - is that possible?), but I don’t see it discussed by the important independent journalists on Substack I follow. The independent Democracy Now has covered it, as I recall. All of Israel’s war crimes are being ignored by the MSM because they’re afraid to take a stance against Netanyahu.

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brian's avatar

Let's seriously hope that if Deform wins the next GE they don't purge the media. They are bad enough already, but somehow I can picture Fartage rooting out those he considers lefties then using them as an excuse to say the BBC needs to be sold off because it is no better than The Grauniad or whichever he chooses as the ultimate enemy.

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James Abrego Garcia's avatar

Extra points for use of Fartage there. I use that too. Should be more prevalent.

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