THE WATCHMAN HAS LEFT THE BUILDING

There was a time — and I’m old enough to remember it without squinting — when the American media understood its job. Not the branding, not the posturing, not the “content strategy.” The job. It didn’t “lose its way.” It didn’t “struggle.” It didn’t “make mistakes.”

It quit.

It walked off the job. Abandoned the gate it was sworn to guard. And it left the public — the very people it claims to serve — standing in the dark.

The media. The watchman at the gate. The teacher of the public. The one outfit in the whole civic circus that was supposed to say, “No matter who you are, no matter how powerful you think you are — if you do something in the dark, we will drag it into the light.”

I spent over fifty years behind microphones, in front of cameras in the biggest media markets in America. I watched presidents fall, wars begin, scandals erupt, and history twist itself into shapes no fiction writer would dare submit. And through all of it, the media — flawed, biased, human — still understood one sacred obligation:

Tell the public what happened. All of it. Especially the parts that make the powerful sweat.

That was the deal.

That was the covenant.

Instead, the media treats them like a fart in an elevator: Pretend it’s not there. Stare at the floor. Wait for the next stop. Move on.

And for that half a century behind microphones, consoles, and ON AIR lights, I watched that covenant erode like steel left in saltwater.

I wasn’t a “journalist.” I was an entertainer, an air talent, a Talk Show host. But that gave me a freedom the credentialed class didn’t have: I could point at the Emperor and shout, “He’s naked!” without a committee meeting to approve the metaphor.

And now, here we are — in an era where the emperor is not only naked, he’s doing cartwheels down Main Street, and the media is dismissively scrolling on their phones.

Because today’s media doesn’t teach. It curates. It filters. It decides which lessons the public is mature enough to handle — and which ones might cause discomfort, embarrassment, or political inconvenience. The institution with a constitutional protection, cultural authority, and a moral obligation to inform the public is treating silence as a strategy.

Two recent “blockbuster” stories: Rupert Lowe’s “The Rape Gang Inquiry Report” and here. And DNI Tulsi Gabbard’s declassified document release should have been front-page, wall-to-wall, “stop the presses” moments. Not because they confirm anyone’s ideology, but because they raise serious questions about institutional failure, government transparency, and public trust.

The Lowe Report: the British government’s purposed cover up of at least 250,000 young white girls subjected to repeated rape, gang rape, trafficking between towns/cities, torture, filming for distribution, forced Islamic conversion, pregnancy, and lifelong trauma. 87% of convicted offenders had Muslim names. Estimates put the real figure at 95% Muslim. Networks were almost entirely Muslim men.

Imagine standing in the largest stadium in the world, capacity 114,000, surrounded entirely by young women, each one with a torn bra, bloodied panties, facial cuts and contusions. And trauma that will last a lifetime. There are another identical 135,000 victims waiting outside. The government authorities that could have stopped and punished the perpetrators ignored them. And the Media, entity with the moral responsibility to inform and warn, didn’t.

Tulsi Gabbard’s recent release of declassified documents revealing Dr. Anthony Fauci’s monstrous lies, deceptions and participation throughout the COVID-19 “Pandemic” tragedy. Millions died needlessly - and continue to die - as the result of the evil one man engineered, then intentionally and repeatedly lied about his complicity. There are no latter-day “Woodwards and Bernsteins” vigorously pursuing Fauci and friends and facts.

What we do have is radio silence. Strategic quiet. A silence so loud it becomes its own headline.

Not because the stories were trivial. Not because they were settled. Not because they were unimportant. But because they were inconvenient.

When the media decides a story is too messy, too politically charged, too uncomfortable, or too likely to upset the wrong people, they don’t investigate it — they quarantine it.

They don’t challenge it — they ignore it.

They don’t inform the public — they manage the public.

The ugly truth: When the press decides silence is safer than scrutiny, the powerful learn a lesson — Do whatever you want. No one’s watching. No one’s asking. No one’s telling.

While no one of us can litigate the facts of those stories, each of us can indict the silence.

When the media refuses to cover major allegations, major inquiries, major revelations — even critically, even skeptically, even cautiously — it commits a sin far greater than bias. It commits abdication.

A free press with First Amendment protection is not supposed to behave like a PR department. It is not supposed to decide which truths are “safe” for public consumption. It is not supposed to hide behind euphemism, omission, or the hope that if they don’t cover it, maybe the public won’t notice.

Whn the media, as society’s teacher, refuses to teach — when it hides, minimizes, or selectively filters the lessons the public needs — it becomes an accessory to ignorance, confusion, and civic decay.

The media used to be the watchdog. Now it’s the sleeping dog that never barks.

History has never been kind to societies where the press decided its job was to manage the public rather than inform it. The next generation always pays the price for the stories their parents weren’t allowed to hear.

So, yeah — I’m angry. Not performatively. Not theatrically. Not for ratings. But because I spent most of those fifty years believing the media was flawed, biased, human — but still fundamentally committed to the idea that the public had a right to know, to warn the people of government transgressions. But it doesn’t.

I watched the subtle shift from principled reporting to curated narrative management and became convinced: the media doesn’t believe that anymore either. Not even close.

The media’s silence isn’t just a failure of practicing journalism. It’s a failure of duty. A failure of courage. A failure of the very institution that once taught us how to understand the world.

I’m not angry because the media is biased. Bias is human. Bias is inevitable. Bias is manageable.

I’m angry because the media has become compromised and afraid. Afraid of backlash. Afraid of controversy. Afraid of losing access, losing advertisers, losing the illusion of neutrality.

If the media won’t report the truth, the public can’t learn. If the public can’t learn, the powerful can do whatever they please. And when the powerful do whatever they please, the rest of us are no longer citizens. We’re spectators. Ultimately, we become slaves.

I didn’t spend my life behind a microphone to morph into a spectator – or a slave. I’m not going to just “fade to black”, let the watchman walk off the job, without raising hell rattling the gate. Either the watchman comes back or the gate comes down.

And should the gate come down - then…

BW “It does not take a majority to prevail ... but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.” - Sam Adams

NB: Thanks for all the kind/amusing words about my latest Field Guide to Media Cowardice. ICYMI…

Share