We often hear that the official media provide us with objective information, while alternative social media are full of all kinds of things, but mostly misinformation, conspiracy theories and hate speech.

That’s all very well, but there’s another side to the coin. Sometimes the official media, while very often critical of governments on domestic political issues, don’t stray too far from them when it comes to international politics. There’s a lot of investigative journalism, but not when it comes to geopolitics. In the Russia-Ukraine conflict, for example, I don’t know many working journalists from here (reporter, editorialist, columnist) working in official media who have sounded a very different note from the official discourse about the so called ‘‘unprovoked aggression.’’ I’ve never heard it said that this could be a proxy war waged by the United States against Russia, or even a war made inevitable and desired by the United States. Yet this is the view of many alternative intellectuals and journalists.

In the current context of ongoing genocide in Gaza, restraint also seems to be called for in our press, and it is as though it was well adjusted to the silence of Western leaders. Journalistic rigor this time seems to require neutrality, in the form of an obligation to let different voices be heard. We are particularly sensitive to the vandalism, hate speech and violent acts coming from any quarter, including against the Jewish community. These are certainly reprehensible acts. But all in all, the restraint, the neutrality, the dissonance of different sound bites, the denunciation of acts of vandalism and the distant silence of the political authorities, create an overall effect that suits Netanyahu perfectly well. He can continue his genocide with impunity.

Against this backdrop, it may seem useful to seek information from high-calibre alternative media. They do exist. You can, for instance, follow the information coming from the following sources:

John Mearsheimer, University of Chicago on Substack.

Seymour Hersh, a leading American journalist, on Substack.

Glenn Greenwald, journalist who made public Edward Snowden’s discoveries about the NSA and his show System update on Rumble.

Brianhna Joy Gray, on ‘Bad Faith’ and her participation to ‘Rising’ on The Hill.

Chris Hedges, intellectual journalist with long field experience who worked for the NYT and is now on Substack.

Martin Lukacks on The Breach.

Rania Khalek on Breakthrough News.

Richard Medhurst on Rumble.

Robin Philpot radio show ‘Le pied à Papineau.’

Alexander Mercouris and Alex Christofarou, hosts of The Duran show on several platforms, including Rokfin.

Caitlin Johnstone, a frequent contributor to Consortium News.

Brian Berletic, a former American soldier who hosts The New Atlas.

Aaron Maté and Max Blumenthal on The Grayzone.

Michel Collon hosts the Investig’action website.

Richard Wolf and Brian Becker on the Democracy at Work website.

You can also access many other informations on the Consortium News and Moon of Alabama websites.

You can also keep an eye out for contributions coming from the following people:

Ray McMovern, former CIA employee.

Journalist Dimitri Lascaris.

Journalist John Pilger.

Political scientist Mark Sleboda.

Intellectual Carl Zha.

Politician George Galloway.

Politician Clare Daly.

Michael Carley professor of history at Université de Montréal.

The former British diplomat Craig Murray.

Jacques Baud, former member Swiss secret service.

The political scientist Benjamin Abelow.

The intellectual Medea Benjamin.

The activist Yves Engler.

LThe geopolitical analyst Caroline Galacteros.

Ivan Katchanovski, teacher at Ottawa University.

The intellectual Vijay Prashad.

The filmmaker Oliver Stone.

The politician Sahra Wagenknecht.

The journalist Matt Taibbi.

Andrew Bacevich, professor of international relations at Boston University.

Noam Chomsky, retired MIT professor.

Scott Ritter, retired from the U.S. Army, who worked for the reduction of nuclear weapons.

Douglas McGregor, former U.S. army colonel.

Jeffrey Sachs, Columbia University economist who played a major role in the transition of the Polish economy.

Emmanuel Todd interviewed, for instance on the Elucid website.

With regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the contributions of Abby Martin, Norman Finkelstein and Katie Halper, as well as those of Edwy Plenel on Mediapart and those of The Electronic Intifada, Novara Media and Democracy Now, are particularly useful.

None of these platforms, websites or alternative individual interventions contain hate speech, conspiracy theories or disinformation. And yet, the information that can be gathered there very often leads us to see things in total opposition to the official discourse of political leaders, and even to contradict the news coming from the official media.