Feral Journalism – Rewilding Dissent

29 January 2015

 - One of the weirdest features of contemporary culture is the way even the best corporate journalists write as though under enemy occupation.

Journalists admit, even in public, but particularly in private, that there is much they just cannot say. As Noam Chomsky has noted, the best investigative reporters ‘regard the media as a sham’ trying to ‘play it like a violin: If they see a little opening they’ll try to squeeze something in that ordinarily wouldn’t make it through’.

Of course, the truth of the sham is one of the ‘tunes’ that doesn’t get played. While not typically subject to Big Brother-style threats, journalists are keenly aware that they can be swiftly ‘disappeared’ by the grey, profit-oriented suits draped in hierarchical chains above them.