I’m sitting here in this festering digital hellscape, chain-smoking a cherry flavoured vape and staring at a screen vomiting out what passes for “news” in 2025. The air’s thick with lies, and the stench of journalistic cowardice is choking me worse than the smog outside. The Chartered Institute of Journalists – those sanctimonious relics – babbles about ethics, accuracy, and serving the public interest like it’s some sacred code carved into stone tablets. But out here in the real world, where the truth is a punching bag for every agenda-driven hack with a camera or a keyboard, those principles are just graffiti on a crumbling wall. Modern journalism? It’s a circus of bias, a parade of self-proclaimed prophets like Tommy Robinson, and a betrayal of everything the truth used to stand for. Let me drag you through the muck and show you how it’s all gone to hell.
The CIoJ’s Holy Commandments: A Eulogy for Dead Ideals
The Chartered Institute of Journalists – bless their dusty little hearts – wants journalists to be ethical, accurate, verified, and independent, serving the public like knights of some noble order. They’re supposed to dig for facts, not sling mud; to verify sources, not parrot talking points; to protect the public interest, not pander to the loudest mob. Sounds nice, doesn’t it? Like a fairy tale where the press is a beacon of truth in a world drowning in bullshit. But open your eyes, you naive bastards – these principles are roadkill on the information superhighway. The newsrooms of today are either corporate kennels or echo chambers for ideologues, and the CIoJ’s lofty ideals are just a footnote nobody reads.
GB News: The Right-Wing Funhouse Mirror
Take GB News, Britain’s shiny new propaganda machine masquerading as a news channel. Launched in 2021, it’s a carnival of right-wing talking heads – Nigel Farage, Jacob Rees-Mogg, and a rotating cast of Brexit cheerleaders – who’d rather preach than report. The CIoJ says journalists should be independent, but GB News is about as independent as a dog on a leash. When Michael Crick, a rare voice of dissent, called them out on their own air in 2023 for being a right-wing echo chamber stuffed with Tory MPs, they yanked him off the set faster than you can say “Ofcom violation.” No verification, no balance – just a megaphone for their mates. They’re not reporting the world; they’re sculpting it to fit their viewers’ prejudices. And when they suspended Laurence Fox and Dan Wootton in 2023 for misogynistic rants about a female journalist, it wasn’t principle – it was damage control after 7,300 complaints to Ofcom. The CIoJ’s call for ethical conduct? GB News laughs in its face, and the public eats it up like cheap candy.
BBC News: The Establishment’s Lapdog
Then there’s the BBC, the granddaddy of “impartiality,” crowing about its Royal Charter like it’s a divine mandate. Impartiality, they say, is in their DNA. Bullshit. Their DNA is laced with establishment bias, and they’re too smug to admit it. In 2024, over 230 media industry folks, including 100 BBC staffers, signed a letter accusing the Beeb of dehumanizing Palestinians and soft-pedalling Israel’s actions in Gaza. The Asserson Report, a 199-page takedown, claimed the BBC’s coverage from October 2023 to February 2024 was riddled with omissions – like failing to call Hamas terrorists while downplaying Israel’s press freedom issues (Reporters Without Borders ranks Israel 101st out of 180 for press freedom, by the way). Yet the BBC’s response? A shrug and a claim they’re “transparent” about their limits. Meanwhile, their Verify unit, supposed to be a crack team of fact-checkers, got caught in 2024 fluffing up Israel’s narrative about Iranian missile strikes without mentioning the lack of evidence. The CIoJ demands accuracy and verification? The BBC’s too busy playing both sides to notice, bending over for the government of the day while pretending it’s balanced.
Tommy Robinson: The YouTube Tantrum Machine
Now let’s talk about the clowns who call themselves journalists on platforms like TikTok and YouTube. Enter Tommy Robinson – real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon – a far-right thug who thinks hate is a personality trait. This guy’s been peddling anti-Muslim bile since his English Defence League days, and now he’s a self-styled “journalist” with a million Facebook followers and a knack for getting banned. In 2020, TikTok kicked him off for videos like one where he waved a Quran and blamed it for “the mess we’re in.” YouTube restricted his account for “borderline content” in 2019, but he’s still out there, racking up views with zero regard for the CIoJ’s principles of verification or ethics. In 2019, he tried to intimidate a journalist covering his antics by showing up at their house at 11 p.m., whining about “media corruption.” In 2024, he was back at it, harassing MailOnline reporters Andrew Young and Jacob Dirnhuber on X, posting edited photos of their families and threatening to “come to their doors.” This isn’t journalism – it’s a vendetta with a smartphone. Robinson doesn’t verify facts; he weaponizes rumours to stoke hate, and platforms let him run wild until the lawsuits pile up. The CIoJ’s public interest? He’s spitting on it.
The World Through a Funhouse Mirror
Modern journalism isn’t reflecting the world – it’s distorting it. Take the 2024 Gaza coverage: right-wing outlets like GB News and the Daily Mail screamed about pro-Israel bias at the BBC, while left-leaning critics and BBC’s own staffers called it pro-Palestinian propaganda. Both can’t be true, yet both sides cherry-pick their narratives, leaving the truth buried under a pile of agendas. Or look at the 2024 UK riots, sparked by misinformation about a Southport stabbing. Social media “journalists” on X and TikTok spread lies about the suspect’s identity, fuelling far-right mobs, while mainstream outlets like the BBC hesitated to call it what it was – racist violence – until the smoke cleared. The CIoJ’s call for a true reflection of society? It’s drowned out by clicks, shares, and the race to be first, not right.
Then there’s the X platform, where every idiot with an opinion calls themselves a journalist. In 2023, posts on X about the Israel-Gaza conflict – 40% from the US, 30% from the UK – amplified Robinson’s anti-Muslim rants, racking up millions of views with no fact-checking or accountability. Algorithms don’t care about the CIoJ’s verification standards; they care about engagement, and hate sells. Mainstream outlets aren’t much better. The BBC’s own journalists were told in 2020 to stop “virtue signalling” on social media to avoid bias accusations, yet their coverage still leans toward whoever’s in power. GB News? They’re too busy platforming Tory MPs to notice their own slant. The result? A world where the public doesn’t get facts – they get a choose-your-own-adventure story written by whoever shouts loudest.
The Truth is a Casualty, and We’re All Complicit
Journalisms supposed to be a flashlight in the dark, not a strobe light at a rave. The CIoJ’s principles – ethics, accuracy, independence – are a roadmap to truth, but modern journalism’s taken a detour through a swamp of bias and sensationalism. GB News and the BBC aren’t delivering the world as it is; they’re delivering the world their audiences want to see, filtered through corporate and political lenses. Self-proclaimed “journalists” like Tommy Robinson aren’t seeking truth – they’re selling hate, using YouTube as megaphones for lies. And the public? We’re lapping it up, retweeting, liking, and sharing until the signal’s lost in the noise.
I’m not here to save journalism – I’m here to kick it in the teeth until it remembers what it’s supposed to be. The CIoJ can preach all it wants, but until journalists stop playing to the gallery and start chasing the truth, no matter how ugly, we’re all just rats in a maze, running toward the next shiny lie. Now get out of my face – I’ve got some ego’s to burn down with words.
Spider Thompson, signing off, probably banned from X by morning.
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