By RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com on his AJC Radio & TV Talk blog on Wednesday, January 31, 2018
A day after he was fired by Atlanta's CBS46, Ben Swann announced the resurrection of his Truth in Media website and related social media accounts focused on stories he says the mainstream press won't address.
In a video which appears to have been shot in front of Cobb Energy Performing Arts Center, Swann said he has raised enough money through sponsor Dash, a decentralized, autonomous, peer-to-peer cryptocurrency cash, to fund twice-weekly editions of his "Reality Check with Ben Swann."
"Quite candidly," Swann said, "that is what gives it power. A large community able to fund projects like Truth in Media and Reality Check without some corporation crushing the voices of which it does not agree. That is the power of decentralization. That is what is so exciting about this announcement."
When CBS46 found out he was about to relaunch Truth in Media, the station summarily fired him on Monday.
He started Reality Check and Truth in Media several years before he joined CBS46 while working at a TV station in Cincinnati. He built a following among people who enjoy a good conspiracy theory or three, questioning the truth behind one of the buildings fell on 9/11 and the veracity of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.
Swann worked at CBS46 for about two and a half years as an evening anchor. For the first 18 months, he did regular "Reality Check" stories for CBS46 but after his Pizzagate story went viral last year, the station forced him to stop doing those stories and to take down all social media and his Truth in Media site.
He told his followers to be patient. "For the past year, I have been in a position where I have been unable to talk about Truth in Media. I have also been refrained if you will from having social media and having a social media presence at all. We're going to get into that later. I want to tell you all about why that happened. But I have not been in a position to do anything about it." [He didn't actually explain in this video what happened behind the scenes but he may do so at another time.]
Then he quoted the "Art of War" by Sun Tzu: "Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt."
"If you have followed my work," Swann continued, "I absolutely believe that the left-right paradigm in media is fake. I believe that corporations and politicians and special interest groups have gamed so many systems. They have gamed the financial industry, the health-care industry, the political systems in America and yes, they have corrupted our media. I believe humanity is greater than politics."
He said he is now able to "question those who are in authority where ever they are, whatever party they belong to, whatever their ideology, to hold them accountable."
He promises new Reality Check episodes starting February 6 on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
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