Strengthening Substack Journalism With Video at Rumble: the Free Speech, Anti-YouTube Platform

Along with a group of heterodox writers, this move is designed to expand the reach of our journalism, support free speech platforms, and enable more reader interaction.

New Rumble pages of Glenn Greenwald (l.) and former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (r.)

Over the last several weeks, I announced to subscribers that I had been working on an exciting project that would significantly supplement and expand the journalism we do here. On Thursday, we unveiled the project: as first reported in a tendentious, resentment-driven and predictably deceitful Washington Post article, I am creating a new video journalism platform on the Canada-based free-speech site Rumble. I made the decision to move to this platform along with a group of other outstanding independent journalists and political voices, including former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI), the comedian and frequent Rogan guest Bridget Phetasy, my long-time journalistic colleague Zaid Jilani, the writer and podcaster Siraj Hashmi, and others.

My initial video there explains how I intend to use the platform to supplement the journalism I do here, outlines why I believe Rumble — like Substack — is a vital platform to support, and dissects The Washington Post attack on Rumble and our move in order to highlight the standard manipulative techniques used by corporate media outlets to push their agenda under the guise of "news reporting.” You can watch that first video here. I also joined Tucker Carlson last night at the top of his show to talk about the dangers of increasing Big Tech censorship and why independent journalism platforms like Substack and Rumble are so vital to combat it.

Though this may expand, my current plan is to use Rumble for four separate types of videos: 1) regular production of our long-standing SYSTEM UPDATE series, designed to journalistically examine complex topics in-depth with mini-documentary-style reports (our examination of the Michael Flynn prosecution and the House Armed Services Committee's blocking of Trump's plan to withdraw troops from Afghanistan are examples); 2) commentary on various political and media events whose importance does not justify a full article published here at Substack but which also requires more substance than a few tweets can convey; five-to-seven minute video commentary will be ideal for such issues; 3) more interviews with political and media figures who are working for and expressing interesting ideas; and 4) a bi-monthly live chat exclusive to subscribers to this Substack, where I can answer your questions, respond to comments, and generally expand my interaction and dialogue with readers here.

As I've said repeatedly, all content there will be freely available to anyone who is a subscriber here (you can subscribe to the channel there for free). None of what I intend to produce in terms of video journalism is intended to supplant the writing I do here; to the contrary, I view this new platform as strengthening and expanding the journalism we can do. I'm particularly excited that Rumble has invested in a new studio that will enable us to produce highly professionalized video content; the studio is not quite complete, which explains the technical kinks in the first videos, but it will be within a matter of days, enabling television-level quality for what we broadcast.

There are two aspects to this move that excite me most. One is that there are large numbers of people (particularly but not only younger people) who do not and will not consume news by reading articles but will only watch videos, and this will enable the journalism we do here to reach far more people. Conversely, I'm aware that many of you do not want to sit through lengthy videos but prefer to read text and, for that reason, we will provide transcripts for the longer videos that we produce shortly after they are made available.

The other aspect is that there is little point in merely documenting, denouncing and complaining about Big Tech censorship without doing everything possible to support and strengthen those platforms that are committed to resisting that repression. I became convinced that Substack is genuinely committed to free speech principles once I moved here, and I am now convinced that Rumble is as well. That is why my starting a channel there, along with this heterodox and independent group of other journalists, is important for fortifying and expanding the remaining spaces on the internet that still allow free thought, free discourse and, most of all, liberation from Big Tech control.

Now that this project is launched, I'll be able once again to devote my standard time and attention to writing here. But I'm also thrilled about the potential this new video project has for making the journalism we do here more consequential, more interactive with all of you, and more supportive of a crucial cause — internet freedom — that I have extensively reported on but also want to use my platform to support.

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