Truth in Media Project Launches in Concord

It was an evening of discussion, speeches, music, and a panel about the state of media and technology at the launch of a new news company that will focus on covering topics not often seen on television.

The Truth in Media Project is headed up by Ben Swann, an award-winning former Cincinnati television reporter, who, along with others, has raised more than $250,000 to create a new network to create “truthful” news for the web and television news stations. The group will focus on creating at least 100 high-quality video projects, about five to six minutes in length, to share with other networks. The group came to New Hampshire to cap its fundraising campaign at The Draft on South Main Street on July 26, officially launching the project.

Swann has become a folk hero of sorts to a number of more libertarian-minded political activists and media watchdogs for being one of the only reporters to ask President Barack Obama during the 2012 campaign about a “kill list” that was targeting Americans for assassination. He said the project was about giving people “facts” concerning important topics not covered often on television stations such as monetary policy, civil liberties, the drug war, and foreign policy.

“(It’s) an attempt to bring truth to media, through streaming sites, through local news stations, across the Internet,” Swann said. “When I say truth, I mean cutting through the left-right paradigm.”

From there, the network hopes to get the clips out to people and then, activate them into action, as a form of crowd sourcing change strategies, with viewers acting on the information they see. 

Tyrel Ventura, a producer who has worked on a number of projects including his father, Jesse Ventura’s, TruTV series, “Conspiracy Theory,” as well as a number of movies, is also working with Swann. He said he signed up in an effort to shed light on some of the country’s most pressing issues of the day and to also focus on alternative issues.

“The media parrots the two parties, universally, without question and anything different, they attack,” Ventura said. “They don’t like it. It’s out of balance to them. We need more voices like Ben. We may not agree with each other but with the key is with the Internet (is) we can all get along … and the bottom line is getting the information out to you … getting the truth out to you.”

A number of speakers touched up on other media issues like bias in the mainstream media and Washington press corps, corporate radio and television stations, profit versus nonprofit structures, programming, technology and new media, and the Internet. Carla Gericke, the president of the Free State Project, spoke, as did James Gray, the 2012 vice presidential candidate for the Libertarian Party, who talked via Skype.

The event was put together by Fanconx, of Lebanon, which is handling all of Swann's web presence, and provides social media, website creation and web-marketing services for clients throughout the United States.

For more information, visit BenSwann.com.