This Ain’t Journalism, It’s Judas with a Press Pass
The Press Sold Out. We’re Here for the Receipts
Let us be clear from the outset: The American press has become a brothel.
And too many of you so-called journalists are just well-paid courtesans, selling your pen to the highest bidder, while pretending your bylines are baptized in truth.
The Society of Professional Journalists says: “Seek truth and report it.”
But what most of you seek is proximity to power, access to platforms, and applause from your ideological choir. You don’t “seek truth”—you curate narrative. You don’t “report it”—you remix it to fit your agenda.
Your headlines aren’t headlines.
They’re weapons.
Polished, preened, and pointed directly at the American soul.
Let’s Talk Bias—Since Y’all Forgot
Bias isn’t always a red hat or a blue hashtag.
Sometimes it’s a camera angle, a caption, a two-second clip out of a five-minute truth.
You say “mostly peaceful protests” while the city burns.
You say “officer-involved incident” when a Black man is bleeding out.
You say “economic anxiety” for white rage and “cultural pathology” for Black pain.
Miss me with your thesaurus of cowardice.
You tiptoe around the truth because you’re afraid—afraid of losing access, afraid of offending the mob, afraid of being called biased by the very audiences you've trained to expect bias that flatters their worldview.
Let’s quote your own damn code again: “Be vigilant and courageous about holding those with power accountable.”
But you won’t.
Because you’re owned.
By corporate advertisers.
By political overlords.
By your own weak-kneed desire to be liked.
You do not write for the people.
You write for algorithms and retweets.
You do not hold power accountable—you sit in its lap and ask for exclusives.
Journalism Ain’t Safe Work
James Baldwin said, “The world is held together by the love and the passion of a very few people.”
He was talking about those willing to tell the truth when everyone else is screaming lies.
Journalism used to be dangerous, not just in Baghdad or Birmingham, but in boardrooms, newsrooms, and dinner tables.
Now it’s sanitized, corporatized, weaponized.
A PR machine for America’s two-headed political beast.
You used to chase the truth.
Now you chase likes.
You used to verify.
Now you amplify.
And don’t come quoting the First Amendment if you’re too spineless to offend your own damn side. Free speech means nothing if the press no longer speaks freely—especially when it cuts close to home.
Here’s What Needs to Happen
Stop playing stenographer to power. Be its reckoning.
Get out of your echo chamber. If your newsroom looks like a monoculture, it’s not journalism—it’s a cult.
Stop being so damn scared of nuance. America is complicated. If your story isn’t, it’s a lie.
Put the people before your platform. Always.
Let me say it plain:
If you’re not willing to lose your job to tell the truth, you shouldn’t have it.
Because journalism is not a career. It’s a calling.
And too many of you have lost the plot—and sold the soul.
But the rest of us—we’re still here.
Watching. Writing. Resurrecting the truth.
One fire-baptized paragraph at a time.
“The truth hurts and we’re here to make sure it stings.” — Philip James Balwin