Emmy-winning independent journalist Ben Swann
Swann sought and ultimately discovered the key to true independence: decentralization and an organization known as a DAO.
(PRWEB) April 18, 2018
Taking shape in the United States and throughout the world in recent history is the gradual transformation of how media, particularly journalism, is created and distributed. Independent media companies have been folded into larger corporations, and virtually all “local” television stations have been purchased by giant corporations. The end result is hundreds upon hundreds of entities suffering from a troubling lack of autonomy.
Ben Swann— an Emmy-winning investigative journalist and the founder of Truth In Media and Reality Check series— is fully aware of this transformation, as he has spent the majority of his career devoted to remaining a completely independent journalist not bound to any influence or higher authority. Over the last 20 years across multiple stations, Swann amassed awards for his investigative reports, yet found himself at odds with executive leadership seeking to maintain more routine reporting.
This clash was particularly apparent when Swann began a series called Reality Check that discussed current US and international events while providing critical context missing from traditional mainstream media reports on those same issues. For example, during the early years of Reality Check Swann covered the 2012 Republican Presidential primary and opted to scrutinize issues in the US electoral process and the methods used by mainstream media to gloss over overlooked aspects of the system.
Also during the early stages of Reality Check, Swann took unprecedented action as a journalist by directly confronting President Barack Obama about the Constitutionality of his little-known “kill list,” and went on to grill Mitt Romney about using coercion on delegates during the 2012 Republican National Convention.
Despite being advised to take a conventional approach to reporting, Swann continued to stay true to his principles and founded the Truth In Media Project in 2013, where he created two seasons of episodes that closely examined the Federal Reserve, police militarization, crony capitalism, the origin of ISIS, the government’s grip on cannabis, the conflict in Syria, and more. Along with continued Reality Check episodes and a network of additional independent journalists creating content for the Truth In Media Project, Swann has attracted an audience of tens of millions of people spanning the political, geographical and social spectrum.
In early 2017, his commitment to sovereign reporting clashed with limitations handed down to him in his “day job” as a news anchor; by February of 2017, Ben’s independent endeavors ground to a halt. For the remainder of the year, Swann sought and ultimately discovered the key to true independence: decentralization and an organization known as a DAO.
Decentralization means that there is no single person, or group of people, that has control over an organization. A DAO is a decentralized autonomous organization; in a DAO, an organization operates within a set of guidelines but is free from any ruler or group of rulers, and operates with all aspects of the organization funded by the network itself. A DAO is the antithesis of a centralized corporation that is often suppressed by layers upon layers of bureaucracy. The DAO of Dash, a revolutionary digital currency, features a treasury in which a network of participants may vote to allocate portions to a number of projects submitted through a proposal process. The structure is similar to a sponsorship, but the key distinction of a DAO is that there’s no central authority to mandate terms. The Dash DAO has funded numerous proposals, with Swann’s Reality Check Series and Truth In Media Project being among the most significant proposals in Dash’s history.
Independent media is often incredibly difficult to pull off successfully, especially when reporting on issues that powerful conglomerates don’t want discussed. There is no doubt that Swann has always aimed for disruptive, informative journalism, which is embraced by citizens yet often unwelcome in most media corporations. As Swann has aimed to disrupt the media, the Dash DAO has disrupted the financial industry. The unique harmony between the Dash DAO and Swann has eliminated journalistic constraints previously laid out by corporate media, and is the world’s most detailed illustration of how decentralization is able to put the power back into the hands of the creator.
Decentralization is an immensely powerful element, and it’s not limited to the financial sector. It can be applied to virtually any industry, and the Dash DAO is responsible for a historic, revolutionary transformation in media with Swann becoming the first journalist in the world to be powered by decentralization.