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Introducing ISE Media Network!

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ISE Media Network is a 24-hour news and entertainment streaming platform built with blockchain technology in response to the widespread systematic censorship of independent media by corporate media giants like Google, Apple, Youtube, Facebook, etc.

This platform was conceived by Emmy Award winning journalist and freedom activist Ben Swann. Ben has a reputation for honest and fearless journalism, accumulating hundreds of millions of views for his content through his company Truth in Media.

ISE Network will be a hub for independent media, providing channels for media outlets that have been decimated by the “big tech purge,” as well as creating new original content and providing opportunities for independent content creators to obtain funding to produce their material. All content will be permanently recorded on the ISE blockchain, making it free from censorship and deletion. Content creators and network users will be rewarded with cryptocurrency for uploading and engaging in content.

Isegoria is made of 3 major components:

ISE Live. A 24/7 streaming channel offering daily newscasts, entertainment, docudramas, video podcasts, and independent media content.

ISE Quality. A platform tailored for independent channels. Channels will provide content that is currently being purged from other platforms.

ISE Indie. Independent journalists and content creators that are not large enough to have enough ongoing content for its own dedicated channel will have access to a treasury system. Projects can be presented to the ISE community and subjected to a vote to be awarded funding from the Treasury.

One standout feature of Isegoria is a rewards system for Isegoria’s content creators and users who engage with the platform’s content. All of the content on Isegoria’s network will be permanently recorded on the ISE blockchain, which will free content from censorship and deletion.

For more information about ISE Media network, please visit Isegoria.com.

Featured, International, Swann TV, US

Libya and ISIS: “Not A Failed State, A Collapsed State” Thanks To U.S. and Nato

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Washington D.C.- With all the talk about ISIS beheading 21 Coptic Christians in Libya over the weekend, mainstream media is pushing for more U.S. intervention.

While media and politicians are wringing their hands over the threat that ISIS now poses in Libya, which is directly across the Mediterranean Sea from Europe, they are not discussing “why” ISIS has such a foothold in Libya. Despite what the American public is being told, Libya is not a failed state, it is a collapsed state. One that was collapsed by the United States and Nato almost exactly 4 years ago.

In the video above, Ben Swann breaks down the timeline of events in which Nato and U.S. systematically crushed the nation of Libya and talks with Vijay Prashad, author of ‘Arab Spring, Libyan Winter,’ about America’s influence and policy, which he says has allowed for the growth of ISIS in the region. Prashad and Swann also discuss how blow-back is accelerating across the world.

Business, Featured, Politics, US

Brian Williams Announces Hiatus as NBC News Launches Internal Investigation

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NBC News anchor Brian Williams has announced that he will take a leave of absence from the network, as NBC launches an internal investigation, which stemmed from Williams’ revelation that he lied about being on a helicopter that was shot down by RPG fire during invasion of Iraq in 2003.

On Saturday, NBC News released Williams’ announcement regarding his hiatus. In the statement, Williams said he has decided to take a leave of absence for “the next several days” and that NBC News anchor Lester Holt will take his place:

“In the midst of a career spent covering and consuming news, it has become painfully apparent to me that I am presently too much a part of the news, due to my actions. As Managing Editor of NBC Nightly News, I have decided to take myself off of my daily broadcast for the next several days, and Lester Holt has kindly agreed to sit in for me to allow us to adequately deal with this issue. Upon my return, I will continue my career-long effort to be worthy of the trust of those who place their trust in us.”

Williams’ news comes after NBC announced on Friday that it will be conducting an internal investigation regarding a report Williams gave about his time spent covering the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The Associated Press reported that the probe will be led by Richard Esposito, who worked at ABC, the New York Daily News and New York Newsday prior to coming to NBC.

NBC News President Deborah Turness announced the investigation in an internal memo on Friday:

“As you would expect, we have a team dedicated to gathering the facts to help us make sense of all that has transpired. We’re working on what the best next steps are.”

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd wrote an editorial on Saturday claiming, “NBC executives were warned a year ago that Brian Williams was constantly inflating his biography.”

“THIS was a bomb that had been ticking for a while,” wrote Dowd. “But the caustic media big shots who once roamed the land were gone, and ‘there was no one around to pull his chain when he got too over-the-top,’ as one NBC News reporter put it.”

Williams issued a public apology on Wednesday, for a report he gave on Jan. 30, in which he claimed that he was onboard a helicopter that was shot down by RPG fire during the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

In the original report, Williams stated that he was in the helicopter behind the one that was “almost blown out of the sky” by an RPG.

In 2007, during an interview with Emily Fitzmaurice at Fairfield University, Williams listed his coverage of Iraq as one of the stories that has had the biggest impact on his life. He claimed that he “looked down the tube of an RPG that had been fired,” and had hit the chopper in front of the one he was in.

Williams’ story changed in 2013, during an interview on Late Night with David Letterman, when he said, “two of our four helicopters were hit by ground fire, including the one I was in.”

Although the 2013 version of the story was false, Williams repeated it again on a broadcast of NBC Nightly News on Jan 30. Williams stated that the helicopter he was flying in was “forced down after being hit by an RPG.”

Williams admitted his mistake after being called out on Facebook by soldiers who were on board the Chinook helicopter that was hit. He responded to one of the comments, and admitted that he “was in fact on the Chinook behind the bird that took the RPG in the tail housing just above the ramp.” Williams then issued a public apology on Wednesday, claiming that he had “misremembered” the exact details of what had occurred during his time in Iraq.

The claim that Williams was in a helicopter that was in the same formation as the one that was shot down has been contested by crew members on board the helicopter, who told Stars and Stripes that Williams arrived at the scene an hour after the helicopter made its emergency landing, and only stayed for a few minutes to take pictures and to talk to the crew members.

With Williams’ credibility as a journalist being called into question, there is speculation he also lied about his coverage of Hurricane Katrina.

The New Orleans Advocate reported that the claim Williams made of watching a dead body “float by face down” from his hotel room window in the French Quarter is not possible, due to the fact that the French Quarter is the “original high ground of New Orleans,” and “was not impacted by the floodwaters that overwhelmed the vast majority of the city.”

According to the Associated Press, NBC News “refused to comment Saturday on when or whether Williams would return and who would decide his future.”

Feb. 9, 2015: UPDATE: Brian Williams’ Coverage of Rocket Fire in Israel Raises Questions

Feb. 10, 2015: UPDATE: NBC Suspends Brian Williams for 6 Months without Pay

International, Politics

ABC Reporter Says The Current Conflict in Gaza is The Most Difficult One He Has Ever Covered

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Alexander Marquardt is a veteran reporter for ABC, who specializes as a correspondent in the Middle East. Despite everything he has seen thus far in his career, Marquardt maintains that the current conflict in Gaza is the worst one he has ever witnessed.

“There are no conflicts that come close to covering something like this,” Marqaurdt said, in an interview with The Huffington Post. “There are so many times when there are just these awful, tragic, heartbreaking scenes.”

“When you’re on the ground and you’re seeing things in terms of black and white, and just the human side of the story, the massive death toll, the massive level of destruction, it doesn’t matter what your politics are,” said Marquardt. “It doesn’t matter if you’re a viewer and you’re coming at this story from a certain angle. When you see children and babies crushed to death in their homes or targeted in airstrikes, it’s just heartbreaking.”

Marquardt found that the scenes that really stuck with him from Gaza were the ones that involved the Palestinian children who were victims of the conflict. He was among the journalists staying at a hotel near the beach where four Palestinian boys lost their lives, due to an Israeli airstrike. He also witnessed the death of a young boy who died after being hit by shrapnel. “These are things that really do stick with you,” Marqaurdt said.

Marqaurdt told The Huffington Post that he was shocked when NBC removed Foreign Correspondent Ayman Mohyeldin from Gaza. “It was the wrong move to pull him out,” he said. “It was certainly amazing to watch the community of journalists respond so angrily,” Marquardt added, referencing NBC’s decision to reinstate Mohyeldin as a correspondent in Gaza, after the network’s original decision created a major uproar on social media.

When comparing the coverage of the current conflict between Israel and Hamas to the coverage of the conflict between the two from 2008 to 2009, Marquardt said that the advancement of social media has “completely changed the dynamic” of the reporting.

“Israel was allowed to go about its business without as much scrutiny, whereas this time…there’s a lot more information coming out of Gaza,” said Marquardt, who added that due to the prominence of social media outlets such as Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, it is even more important now to provide accurate and balanced coverage of the story at hand.

Despite the fact that Hamas runs a totalitarian regime in Gaza, Marquardt said, “It’s very easy to move around.” He added, “I’ve never felt like they were trying to stifle my reporting.”

However, in regards to the control exerted by Israel, Marquardt said, “I’ve never seen a PR machine like Israel’s. They are constantly bombarding you.“

International, Politics, US

Breaking: CNN reports CIA Cover Up on Benghazi

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A bombshell from CNN today regarding Benghazi.  According to the cable news network there is in fact a massive cover-up by the CIA to hide what “dozens” of CIA agents were doing on the ground in Benghazi on September 11, 2012.  It was the night of the 11th when Al Qaeda backed militants raided the U.S. compound in Benghazi, killing 4 Americans including Ambassador Chris Stevens.

According to the report from CNN’s The Lead with Jake Tapper:

“Sources now tell CNN dozens of people working for the CIA were on the ground that night, and that the agency is going to great lengths to make sure whatever it was doing, remains a secret. CNN has learned the CIA is involved in what one source calls an unprecedented attempt to keep the spy agency’s Benghazi secrets from ever leaking out.”


There are many questions we still do not have answered but this latest revelation continues to expose the attempted cover up by State Department officials who repeatedly claimed that a YouTube video was the reason for a spontaneous “uprising”.    That was clearly not the case, so what was really taking place in Benghazi?

The secret is being held so closely that CIA agents are reportedly being subjected to repeated polygraph tests to determine if they are talking to members of the media.  In addition, agents are having their careers threatened and say they are under intense pressure to protect not just themselves but their families.

So here we are.  Another government agency demanding secrecy from agents, secrecy that likely has nothing to do with national security and everything to do with a lack of accountability to the American people.

Swann TV

What Investigative Journalism Is All About

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Transcript:

I often get asked by colleagues, friends and viewers  Ben, why is it that so many news outlets are biased?  Can’t we just get the facts minus all the spin?

Well, what they are really asking me is a larger question:  Do you think journalism is dead?

Not at all.  But what is journalism? and moreso, what is investigative journalism?  It seems many have forgotten what it means.

I’ll start by stating what investigative journalism isn’t.  It’s not about force-feeding the public stories which are slanted in favor of huge corporate interests and presenting them as “facts”.  It’s also not about serving the interests of one political party over another.  Most importantly, it’s not a popularity contest.

As for what journalism is, let’s start with the word INVESTIGATIVE, which means specializing in uncovering and reporting hidden information.  Journalism is also a GRASSROOTS endeavor, meaning by the people, for the people.  And then what about an actual definition of the word JOURNALISM itself?  Turns out it means the collection and editing of news for presentation through media.  Notice how I didn’t say sensationalism.  Or bias?  I said news.

I think journalism can be about even more.  To me, it should be a profession based around INTEGRITY.  At the end of the day, if adherence to moral and ethical principles is not part and parcel in how we receive our information, what are we left with?  I also contend that investigative journalism should be FEARLESS.  No question should be too tough to ask, no story too controversial, no subject matter out of bounds.

Journalism should also be a guardian of LIBERTY, in that a free people, should have a free press.  And finally, no constraints – ever – should be placed on the search for TRUTH.

That is the definition, the soul, of what investigate journalism should mean.  And it is why I work so hard every day to restore what the founders called the fourth estate.