Citizen Journalism Is the Future
I used to take it as an insult to be called a citizen journalist — what do you mean, am I not a “real” journalist? Today, I wear the title with pride.
When perhaps the most renowned citizen journalist in the Western world, James O’Keefe, visited me in Stockholm, it became clear that power is shifting.
From the newsrooms.
To the citizens.
I showed O’Keefe around Rinkeby — a suburb where the demographic transformation has gone the furthest. We walked through neighborhoods that politicians reduce to mere “challenges,” but which in reality are marked by Islamism, gang violence, and a monumental waste of taxpayer money. As recently as this morning, two bombings occurred in the area.
After that, I took him to Cyklopen in Högdalen, the headquarters of Antifa in Stockholm. For O’Keefe, who has infiltrated left-wing extremist networks in the United States, this was a concrete example of how militant left-wing extremism constitutes a global terror threat.
O’Keefe rose to prominence through his work with Project Veritas. When he infiltrated CNN, he captured staff members openly speaking about political motives behind their coverage of Donald Trump.
Yet it was the messenger who was attacked.
He has also infiltrated the designated terrorist group Rose City Antifa. When I followed the trail in Sweden, I was able to show that the founders of RCA are now located in Varberg — something that was also noted by the White House.
For a long time, I felt belittled by being called a citizen journalist. As if it were a second-rate title. As if real journalism required state press subsidies, the right contacts, and the correct ideological values.
But after meeting O’Keefe, I realized what it truly means.
We have no media corporations behind us.
No political parties protecting us.
No lobbyists setting the framework.
Only readers.
That is precisely what makes us free.
Just look at independent journalist Nick Shirley, who exposed Somali welfare fraud in Minnesota.
In practice, I am alone in consistently investigating the far-left in Sweden — and yet the revelations reach enormous audiences, sometimes globally. At the same time, they are met with complete silence from established newsrooms. Not because they are unaware of them.
But because they are.
The real dividing line of our time no longer runs between right and left. It runs between citizens who demand accountability and transparency on one side, and an establishment that protects its positions on the other — with left-wing extremists serving as its loudest foot soldiers.
Citizen journalism breaks the information monopoly. It makes it possible for a single individual, armed with a camera and courage, to shake the establishment at its core.
That is why we are despised.
And that is why we are the future.
Swedish mainstream media such as Dagens Nyheter proudly speak of “agenda-journalism.” In other words, they openly admit that they engage in propaganda rather than neutrally describing reality. Yet they are still treated as if they were devoted solely to objective news reporting.
That is precisely why we cannot stop. Because if the media have become part of the power structure — who is left to scrutinize it?
Christian Peterson