Whitlock: The new launch of Blaze News sends ground troops to the front lines of the information war

The highest and most impactful form of communication is the written word. I have believed that for most of my life.

God’s decision to release the Bible in written form rather than video or audio justifies my assertion. He breathed mankind into existence, and when we completely lost our way, He chose to guide, inform, and encourage us with words on a page.

Doubting the power of written text is to doubt the Creator of our inalienable rights.

Thomas Jefferson, this nation’s most profound Founding Father, recognized the power and importance of writing and reading.

“The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people,” Jefferson wrote in 1787, “the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them.”

The enemies of American freedom and founding principles have used Big Tech to de-emphasize the written word, amplify the power of video, and manipulate language to distort foundational truth and dumb down our citizenry.

The pervasive chaos, perversion, and corruption you see overrunning America are directly tied to the assault on the written word and newspapers. The information war is a dispute over language and access to truth.

Through its relationship with Big Tech, the secular left controls the distribution and reach of accurate information.

I’m telling you what you already know. You’ve seen Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and the newspapers that rely on these platforms disappear the Hunter Biden laptop story. We all suffered the consequences after the same cabal magnified the drug-induced death of George Floyd to trigger massive, sustained, and violent unrest across the country. The same group has defined half of this country’s citizens as potential domestic terrorists and plotters of an insurrection.

At some point, we have to do more than complain. We have to take bold steps to end our dependence on platforms that openly despise our worldview and values.

Today Blaze Media has taken a bold step. We’re relaunching our website, TheBlaze.com, and freeing it from internet advertising. This is far more important than it sounds. When publishers like Blaze News host ads on their websites, Google and other major ad exchanges use bots to scan stories for content they deem “unsafe” for advertisers. When an article is deemed “unsafe,” Google then demands that the advertisements be removed and threatens to demonetize the entire website. If we refuse to back down, Google then uses its algorithms to bury the story.

So just imagine Steve Deace writing a piece at the height of the COVID pandemic explaining the stupidity of masks and an experimental medical trial labeled a vaccine. That story has no chance of reaching a wide audience. Google and Facebook won’t allow it.

Here’s another hypothetical: Imagine me writing a column explaining from a biblical point of view why transgenderism is an affront to God. That story would be considered “unsafe” for advertisers. Google and Facebook would do everything in their algorithmic power to prevent people from reading it.

Big Tech is pressuring publishers and content creators to adopt a secular worldview for financial and/or relevance success.

I started writing opinion pieces in 1992 when I took a job at the Ann Arbor News. On every platform, whether it be the Ann Arbor News, the Kansas City Star, ESPN.com, FoxSports.com, AOLSports.com, J.school, or OutKick, my columns never had a problem reaching a wide audience.

I’ve written my most consistently profound and impactful pieces in the last three years writing for Blaze News. At the same time, Big Tech has turned up the algorithmic headwind against my work. When you Google my name, it’s easier to find pieces I wrote about Kobe Bryant 20 years ago than anything I wrote last week.

What I say about Black Lives Matter, Deion Sanders, Megan Rapinoe, the murder of Tyre Nichols, Stephen A. Smith, Josh Allen, and Colin Kaepernick will go viral. What I write about the exact same subjects has a much harder time reaching the masses.

Big Tech and the left control the written word. They realize its importance.

Do we?

Blaze Media is going to take a significant financial hit disconnecting from the major ad agencies. We’re also adding additional staff to fortify the site and create more original content. It is a high-risk move. It’s a move I support. I would rather write in support of God’s truth for less money and to a small remnant than write compromised lies to a wider audience for more money.

I don’t want to be popular. I want to be saved, and I want to save the freedoms our ancestors fought, died, and sacrificed for against forces just as wicked as the enemy we face today.

We need you in this fight with us. You’re going to love the new TheBlaze.com. It looks far better. It’s much easier to read and navigate without all the distracting advertisements. We need your direct support to pull this off successfully. If you haven’t already, sign up for a general Blaze subscription and Blaze News.