The Last Bastions of Integrity in Journalism

It’s hard to look at the way media portrays much of the news these days without immediately assuming there’s a spin or heavy bias. The once great pillars of information dissemination in our society has shown itself to be farcical partisan hacks more than actual arbiters of truth.

Naïvely, this was likely the entire route that mainstream press has taken since its inception, but its through COVID that we have been able to peer behind the curtains and see it for what it truly is. Unfortunately, they themselves will find ways to obfuscate their biases or blame viewers for their inability to see how important they really are.

And this case doesn’t ring true of just mainstream journalism. It’s hard to look at some independent outlets without wondering how much control they have over their own stories or if they are beholden to someone else who may dictate what information gets out.

One of these places in question is the outlet The Hill, which on all accounts has attempted to be “non-partisan” in their coverage of the news. I put non-partisan in quotes because it’s hard to understand if their news either remains unbiased or is so heavily biased on both extremes (based on their writers) that it averages out somewhere in the middle. Regardless, The Hill has allowed for voices that differed from the mainstream in some sense.

This led the likes of Saagar Enjeti and Krystal Ball to have their own shows where they criticized the faults of their side- something that should always be welcomed. But Saagar and Krystal eventually left, leaving a void in The Hill’s Rising YouTube segment with a huge loss in viewership.

So who does The Hill choose to fill these newly opened positions? One of these people was Kim Iversen who originally focused much of her work on her own YouTube channel.

Personally, I couldn’t quite figure out Kim’s political position- she appeared to be one of those people who marketed herself as a libertarian progressive, which I really can’t figure out to this day.

Nonetheless, Kim Iversen eventually became a vocal voice criticizing much of the COVID lockdowns, as well as someone who began voicing concerns over the increasing evidence of “breakthrough” infections and myocarditis.

Eventually, this landed Kim a spot on The Hill’s Rising, which normally only featured two hosts but now had a spot for a 3rd being Kim.

And it was Kim who I would argue brought much of the viewership to The Hill’s YouTube channel. Looking at much of Kim’s videos she garnered hundreds of thousands of views alone on her Radar segments, usually involving questions that criticized the likes of Fauci and much of the COVID response, and usually to the chagrin of her cohosts who may sometimes try reeling in the ideas she provides during her monologues (looking at you Ryan Grim).

But it was Kim’s candid takes on COVID and her unfettered, “what the hell is going on?!” attitude that won her over with the viewers. I’ve featured a few of her segments in some of my own articles because I always found her to be the only one of the hosts to ask the necessary questions, and it was pretty clear from the views on her videos that this is the honest coverage that the viewers were looking for in a sea of filtered, trite coverage. This video on natural immunity from August garnered over 2 million views- a feat that none of her cohosts are likely to reach.

There was a general thirst for truth from all sides of the political spectrum yearning to hear someone who was unfiltered and genuine in her arguments.

But it was only time that that wouldn’t be the case anymore. Over time it appeared that Kim appeared less on The Hill, owning much of it to personal affairs such as taking care of sick loved ones and eventually getting married.

However, all of this came to a head recently in a video from yesterday in which Kim Iversen detailed her departure from The Hill.

Although I’ll let Kim explain it in her video discussing why she left, the reason was one we are all aware of is quite common in mainstream outlets. It appeared that The Hill was able to gain an interview with the great majesty that is Dr. Fauci himself, with a caveat that Fauci’s team had to be provided a list of the interviewers for the segment. When it was made known who would be interviewing Fauci, there was one name that was suspiciously missing from the list- Kim Iversen herself.

The cohost responsible for saying what no one else would dare to say- and bringing viewers back to The Hill because of that- was the one who was barred from asking Fauci questions.

Instead, we are given an interview that is no different than the ones seen with other mainstream outlets:

One wonders what type of heated interview may have come about if Kim was able to ask questions. Certainly the numbers from this interview are not ones that The Hill was looking for, almost being 1/10th of what Kim’s normal Radars would bring in.

But this is once again a consequence of a bought and paid for style of interview that is all too common with mainstream outlets, however here it is with an outlet that prided itself in at least allowing some of their hosts to say what they wanted to say. Only now it teaches us that these people may be no different than the likes that one would see on CNN, NBC or FOX.

It’s a reminder that even non-mainstream outlets that pride themselves in being non-partisan or not bought for may succumb to the same whims of those higher up. It’s the same mechanisms that has led many in the public to become distrustful of the mainstream press, and it’s likely the reason why The Hill has seen such vehement backlash for this interview and Kim’s departure.

As of now, there’s no telling what will happen to The Hill with Kim’s departure, but it’s clear that many of the viewers who returned with Kim’s arrival are not likely to stick around much longer. In fact, I would bet that much of what’s gone on has left a bitter taste in people’s mouths. It serves to alert viewers that what they see may not be genuine, but a façade of authenticity.

Kim’s apparent last radar was on July 21, 2022 in which she discussed conspiracies on mRNA incorporation into host cells, mostly arguing that much of this research is novel and has not been fully looked into yet which is why many people have asked such questions to begin with":

This video has over 350k views alone, and it’s a sign of what The Hill will be losing by kowtowing to handlers who dictate the nature of their coverage rather than allowing journalists to do the work that they would have prided themselves to have done decades prior.

If there’s anything to gain from this, it’s to be aware that sometimes those who appear to have the best intentions may not always stick to such morals. Be careful in assuming that news outlets always have your best interest- when it comes down to it they are likely to go the way that all the other dinosaur news outlets have gone before and sell out.

In any case, I wish Kim all the best in her new endeavors. Hopefully the viewers carry over and she finds solace in knowing that she may have lost her anchor gig, but she still has her principles.

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