Lockdown/Daily Sceptic, has been a great resource. But for me its relevance is diminishing. Each month I donate £13.33 and what I am mostly getting is opinion. Some hard news is published, but not much. I find I'm not reading the Daily Sceptic very often, I haven't the time to wade through it all looking for hard facts and news.
I also pay £8.67/month to the Daily Telegraph. But I can't stomach it any longer. I gave up the BBC a long time ago because it seems to regard itself as an arbiter of truth and public opinion, like the Grauniad. The Daily Mail presentation is nauseating. Unherd, Off-Guardian, and even Conservative Woman are just opinion. I've tried subscriptions to the Times, Washington Post, New York Times.... and cancelled them all after the free trial ended. I could go on but hopefully I've made my point, whether you agree with me or not.
Most "news" originates from just three global news agencies, and most journalists transcribe or at best comment on the agencies' output. Journalists who are invited to press conferences can't ask incisive questions or pursue enquiries with supplementary questions, so most of what is reported is the narrative of their host. A lot of what is presented as news is just propaganda or commentary. Searches are filtered and "fact-checked" by Big Tech. For the last 13 years I have found one of the best sources of actual news to be Zero Hedge, and that's by no means perfect because it's as biased and selective as the rest in its own way.
Much as I support Toby Young and applaud what he has achieved I would prefer to spend the £264 p.a of my two current subscriptions - or even double that - on a news source which limits itself to actually finding out what is happening as accurately as possible, and reporting it without spin, but with a degree of scepticism. A news source that is uncontaminated by opinion columns, "lifestyle" garbage, humour, celebrity nonsense, etc. It needs a home page like Zero Hedge presenting a list of headlines with very brief explanations of the content leaving me to decide which (if any) to read. If Timbuktu suffers a severe earthquake or a destruction of is library by jihadists I'd probably like to know, but I don't necessarily want to know more than the bare fact unless it presages something else of importance. I'd also like to know the source of each news item.
Is there a future role for the Daily Sceptic as a respected source of news, about everything, not just its current topics?
Hi Peter,
One option is make a one-off 'custom' donation by toggling from monthly to One-time on the main page.
I donate to individual on various platforms via Youtube, Rumble/Locals and Substack. My favourite is a paid weekly newsletter from Dr Zoe Harcombe. I think its about £50 a year.
As for the future role for DS, perhaps if they can generate enough income they can do long form live interviews (Rogan) or video's (UK Column) in their specialised subjects. Perhaps a collabs with the guys at Net Zero Watch.
At most, you might include Zero Hedge as somewhere to glance at for a maverick view financial issues - before you go back to somewhere more sensible. But their coverage of other issues is riddled with conspiracy theories and a Russian bias. Zero Hedge is part of the problem, not the solution.
Hi Michael,
". ..Is there a future role for the Daily Sceptic as a respected source of news, about everything, not just its current topics?"
No, not in my opinion. It would be incredibly hard for DS to transform itself into the sort of news outlet you describe - not to mention costing an absolute fortune! Besides which, I doubt it would want to. It exists to provide a counterpoint to the government and MSM narrative surrounding the unholy trinity of Covid measures, the global warming agenda and woke gobbledegook. That's its 'space', its raison d'être. Within this framework, it does a pretty decent job, IMO. I should make clear I'm just an ordinary DS member - I'm not on the staff - so this is just my understanding and belief.
If you've not yet done so, have a good look at GBNews (you didn't mention them in your OP), as they at least claim to try and be the sort of news outlet that you're looking for. I'm sure they fall short in lots of ways, but perhaps they're better than the pitiful selection of alternatives?
Good luck in your search!
Tim.
// Is there a future role for the Daily Sceptic as a respected source of news, about everything, not just its current topics? //
I'd like to think that there is a crying need for something to fill that niche (assuming you mean both "everything" and "respected" reasonably flexibly). Up until very recently, such a marvel could not have existed, simply because the cost of newsprint would have ruled it out. That's no longer true, but other limiters exist, among which perhaps foremost are funding, audience, and philosophy.
If funding is to be paid for by subscriptions, the content must appeal to a sufficiently large audience. But to have an audience large enough to support a staff numerous enough to cover "everything" in a manner sufficiently "respected" by enough subscribers to keep them paying, the governing philosophy behind the entire operation must be a masterpiece of rhetoric.
If funding is to be provided by government or by a foundation independent of government, it will not be necessary to please a large base of subscribers, but it is unlikely that many subscribers will have much "respect" for the content or that the content will remotely approach any reasonable definition of "everything".