Why subscribe?

The parameters of acceptable journalist inquiry has dramatically narrowed over the nearly four decades I have been a reporter and author. Newspapers, where I began my career, have atrophied or died. The electronic media is in the hands of a half dozen corporations that impose a uniformity of opinion and ban the views of us who decry the crimes of empire, the permanent war economy, the apartheid state of Israel, our money saturated political process and social inequality. Whistleblowers, the life blood of investigative journalism, have been virtually silenced through a combination of wholesale government surveillance—the reason Edward Snowden immediately left the country after revealing that we were all being watched, tracked and monitored by the government—and the misuse of the Espionage Act to prosecute those who reveal government malfeasance and crimes. Julian Assange, who never committed a crime, is on the verge of being extradited to the United States and spending the rest of his life in prison, setting a dangerous legal precedent that criminalizes anyone who possesses or publishes government secrets, as other investigative reporters and I did at The New York Times. Algorithms imposed by digital media platforms such as Google, Facebook and Twitter, shadow ban critics or, as in the case of the New York Post, which was locked out of its own account so it could not disseminate the contents found on Hunter Biden’s laptop, censor them. America’s premier investigative journalist, Sy Hersh, who exposed the war crimes at My Lai and Abu Ghraib, has difficulty publishing in the United States.

My television show on TeleSur, which was later broadcast on RT America, went off the air when these two media outlets where shut down. The staff of Truthdig and I were fired by the wealthy publisher when we went on strike to protest her attempt to fire the legendary Editor-in-Chief Bob Scheer and demand a union. Bob, who had been a columnist for The Los Angeles Times, had been fired from the paper for opposing the Iraq war, similar to my own experience at The New York Times.

Substack is the last best hope for me to retain my independence and do the journalism and writing I find meaningful and impactful. The great investigative journalism, I.F. Stone, a victim of the McCarthyite witch hunts of the 1960s, unable to get a job even at The Nation magazine, founded I.F. Stone’s Weekly, which he printed in his basement. This Substack is an updated version of his weekly, begun for the same reasons and determined to replicate Stone’s fierce honesty and independence.

Corporations will not fund us. The model of relying on the wealthy does not work. The commercial press, along with National Public Radio and PBS, also heavily dependent on corporate funds, has been largely neutered. For $ 6 dollars a month, or $55 a year, I will be able to continue to write my weekly column and produce my weekly television show, also providing posts and reports that will be exclusively for subscribers. Please subscribe.

What you will get:

Subscribers will receive, in addition to my weekly Monday column and my weekly Friday television show, which will be funded by Substack subscriptions, a Wednesday podcast audio of the show that will include supplemental material with guests that will not be aired on the television show. They will receive articles that will only be for subscribers and will have periodic access to direct chats with me. The television show, which will be filmed in Baltimore at The Real News and the podcast will be called The Chris Hedges Report.

I’m still going to write for Scheerpost and write books. But my day job will be writing, broadcasting and reporting in this space.

What critics say:

“Chris Hedges is the greatest radical writer and journalist of our generation! His courage and consistency are legendary!”

- Dr. Cornel West

“There’s Chris, wading in wearing his father’s hand me down gold cuff links and his rarely worn clerical collar, showing us how rare it is to see Spirit triumph over religious doctrine that seems to preach that the poor and enslaved we must have with us always.  Like the irrepressible Cornel West, or, in another context, like Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning, or Daniel Berrigan, he moves directly to his post of more than witness: of brother, of devoted ally of betrayed, but not yet defeated, human kind.”

- Alice Walker

“Chris Hedges has been disturbing the peace for decades. Always standing alongside the voiceless wherever they are. He is a prophet, who’s unafraid to take unpopular stands against corporate and political elites, whether in the Occupy movement, the fight against climate justice, inmates in prison, the poor in inner cities and agricultural fields, or Palestinians in the Gaza strip. He takes a stand with them.”

- Dr. James Cone

Chris Hedges is “a man who, in a climate of obfuscation, confusion, deceit and plain old intimidation, seeks to speak the truth.”

- Oliver Stone

“Chris Hedges is an intellectual bomb-thrower. The kinds of insights he provides into the troubled state of our democracy cannot be found anywhere else. Like many of our most important thinkers, he has been relegated to the margins because of ideas deemed too radical—or true—for public consumption.”

- David Talbot

Become a subscriber.

It costs $6 a month, or $55 annually, to receive the weekly column, the weekly television show, the podcast of the show with bonus material and posts exclusively for subscribers.

FAQ

How can I read a subscriber update?

You can read a subscriber-only update in email, on the website, or on the app. If you click through from your email you will be automatically logged in. If you come to the website separately, you can log in through the Home or About page.

Can I forward the emails?

When it comes to the free posts, spread them as far and as wide as you like, on whatever platform you currently prefer. Occasionally forwarding subscribers-only emails is just fine too. Subscribe to get full access. Never miss an update.

What you get:

The weekly Monday column, along with columns that will only be for subscribers, plus the podcast with the extended interviews and the Friday show and invitations to chats will go directly to your inbox.