The transcript and voiceover is from Whitney Webb’s Speech to the First Annual Children’s Health Defense Conference, October, 2022 Introduction and Background For years, the censorship of factual information that is inconvenient to certain powerful actors, including the US Federal Government and Big Pharma, has been steadily increasing as “information warfare” has become an ever present force in our lives. In a world where what were once obvious truths are under attack, even the very definitions of “journalist” and “journalism” have themselves become controversial and contested. Too often in this “information war”, the first casualty is the truth itself. Facts are rarely treated as sacred by the world’s largest and most influential media outlets, but instead are treated as something to be twisted and manipulated for the benefit of their paying sponsors. In this environment, too many media personalities have become mercenaries for hire and, as a consequence, public trust in the media is cratering. Meanwhile, those who do aim to champion truth in their work are targeted, smeared and censored by tech companies and platforms aligned with “mercenary media”, unaccountable intelligence services, and out of control oligarchs. The following essay focuses on the ongoing insidious effort to normalize the censorship of factual information, the historical context of this war on dissenting voices, and how “journalism” today has increasingly become about protecting the powerful rather than holding them to account. Potential solutions to this existential crisis in journalism are also discussed. Journalism in Crisis: The War on Dissent With each passing day, it seems that Journalism is becoming less of a profession and more of a war zone. Indeed the difference between journalism and “information warfare” is becoming increasingly difficult to pinpoint. Whereas journalism continues to be defined as “writing characterized by a direct presentation of facts or description of events without an attempt at interpretation” – in practice, it has become a battlefield where the most powerful media outlets - that is, those closest to the centers of power – deliberately manipulate or omit facts to craft narratives that expressly benefit the powerful while also colluding to censor their more truthful competition. These media outlets act as mercenaries, with little or no regard for how their actions negatively impact our society and distort reality. Their allegiances lie not with the public, but with those with the deepest pockets. In doing so, in many cases these media mercenaries actively work to suppress the facts and malign those in journalism who do strive to champion the truth above all else. Instead of holding the powerful to account, many so-called journalists today act more as accessories to the crimes committed by the powerful against the public. Objective presentation of the facts, as far as the bulk of mainstream media is concerned, is dead and has been dead for some time. As a consequence, public trust in these media outlets has completely cratered. Yet, even the ostensible challenge to mainstream media, so-called independent or alternative media, is often troubled by similar issues, as the quest for clicks and fame can often supersede objective, factual reporting even outside the bounds of mainstream media. As a result, navigating the world of journalism has never been more difficult or more precarious than it is right now. But if some get their way, navigating the media landscape in search of truth will soon become impossible. There are major efforts, years in the making, to censor dissenting opinions under the guise of censoring “misinformation.” As many readers are undoubtedly aware, what was last year’s “misinformation” with respect to COVID-19 injections has only recently undergone a dramatic change into “breaking news.” Yet, many of us who were right all along and were censored w