Intro
Welcome to The Cameron Journal Newsletter. Each week, Cameron Lee Cowan wraps up the headlines with commentary, helping you navigate today’s media narratives, how they are affecting our Culture, Lifestyle, and Society.
The World is Hard, This is Not
If you’re new here, my name is Cameron Lee Cowan M.A. MFA, and I’m the Creative Director here at The Cameron Journal. You can learn more about me on the about page. I do research and commentary on politics, culture, and the world around us. Each week I send out the latest news narratives, the latest videos from The Cameron Journal and commentary about the week’s events.
Remember, The World is Hard, This is Not.
Update from Cameron
Happy February everyone! The snow from the last snow storm has yet to melt, and it snowed today, as fate would have it. In any case, I finally dug out my car, but I will be scraping and brushing again soon due to the latest round of snow. The only good news is that warmer temperatures will lead to some melting. I will say that it is nice to live on a street that gets plowed!
This week was long but tough for me. I had 3 recordings (although only 2 showed up) and we have some great interviews for you (see below).
I want to thank everyone who dropped me a tip on Kofi last week, I truly appreciate it. My tip jar is still out if you feel so moved to help me out!
A Special Request: A Helping Hand
Before we dive into the headlines, if you really like The Cameron Journal and this newsletter, please feel free to like (on Substack) and share with friends and family. Every new person helps me grow!
I wanted to highlight my Kofi link again.
If you like this newsletter and are willing to contribute, I definitely could use some extra help in these times!
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The News Narratives of the Week
Don’t forget to join me on Monday for The Cameron Journal Newshour!
WaPo and Modern Media
This week, The Washington Post announced that they were laying off 300 journalists mostly from the Sports section and the Metro section, but layoffs have basically gutted the newsroom of one of the premiere newspapers in the country. Since Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post, it hasn’t made money and for a while, it seemed as if it didn’t really need to and Jeff was content to continue on with owning it, however, it appears that the loss rate is too rich, even for him. Slate mentioned that it is a controlled burn because having a well-resourced newspaper is not part of his plan for how society should work. They mostly complain about how Bezos has cozied up to the Trump administration, including stopping the paper from endorsing Kamala Harris in 2024. That stunt left them with 250,000 fewer subscribers. I’m sure Bezos politics are definitely not in line with most of the staff at the paper he owns. However, there is a bigger story than just that, and that is how modern media is changing.
AI is changing how people find and consume media. Newsletters (like this one!) have more reach and depth than the newspapers of old. I would argue part of that is because much of the major media quit doing its job of adequately critiquing power and quit doing that job long before its sale to Bezos in 2013. People are looking for narratives that are in line with what is going said on social media and influencers are talking about. And the mainstream media has been so focused on stories that either don’t address those concerns at all or are too busy dismissing them. This is a theme this week (as you’ll find out).
The conversation is not happening in newspapers, it is happening on X (formerly known as Twitter) and other social media platforms. I will say that the social media team at WaPo does a much better job of engaging with online narratives than the rest of the paper. Quite frankly, we don’t necessarily need newspapers covering sports anymore, there’s so much sports media that does a better job. WaPo is increasingly irrelevant because they have lost the trust of people by not aligning with the values of readers.
At the end of the Slate article, they derisively remark that there is no conservative audience waiting to subscribe to the WaPo and that audience is already consuming other media. That is not a moment to be dismissive that it is happening, it is a wake-up call. Perhaps the way media can survive is by giving people what they want and talking about the stories that matter to people where they live regardless of how “ridiculous” it might seem. Do actual journalism, don’t merely push narratives, and they might be surprised how people come back around.
Democracy doesn’t die in the dark, it dies when the light no longer lights the way.
What Comes After Epstein?
As more and more news comes out from the Epstein files, we are learning how sophisticated Epstein was, especially after his 2009 conviction and how much the fortunes of Donald Trump, Pete Thiel and others were wedded to this man. There are connections to Israel, Russia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UK and more. The Clinton campaign was specifically targeted and taken down by people with disinformation. This is worse than the Watergate break-in in 1972. When elections can be decided this way, what does that mean for democracy? These facts are leading us to an uncomfortable conversation that we need to have as a people.
As I stated in the Newshour, this is truly an Everything conspiracy. Pizzagate, Gamergate, a cabal of rich people screwing everyone over, we now officially live in a world that was first created on Reddit and 4Chan (ironically by both Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell) and it turns out the resist Libs were right, the crazy people weren’t just crying wolf. Everyday gets better and better for those who like to wear tin foil hats and/or have schizophrenia.
However, the bigger conversation that we haven’t had yet but that we will need to have shortly is coming to grips with the reality that we are living in a world that was manipulated to serve the agenda of Steve Bannon, Peter Thiel, Elon Musk and other parties who have been invested in remaking society in their image. The connection to Israel and Russia are also part of that conversation. We have major foreign interference into not just an election, but the very story we tell ourselves about our society. And now we live in this present time when people, who commit evil acts against children, can also wield nearly unlimited power with a veneer of democracy over the top. For those that don’t believe in the present system of government, the Epstein files and what they have revealed should make them feel good about their view. The number of folks who are ready to burn everything down rises daily, and that’s just based on the conversations I have with people and my comments section.
We have to come to terms with the fact that almost every major conspiracy between 1989 and now is at least somewhat true. The tentacles of Epstein spread everywhere, even to the death of Princess Diana. It may cause the collapse of the UK government. A prince has been basically exiled, the Norwegian monarchy is teetering on the brink of collapse due to its connection. France has already raided the offices of X and have demanded Elon Musk appear to answer questions about his participation in this tawdry affair.
What can we do in a world where the wildest conspiracy theories we’ve read at 2 am on a sleepless are real, and we live in a bizarro world that no one can really understand? We are living in a story that was invented for us and created for us. How do we handle that as a society? Most importantly, how do we make sure that this can never happen again? It is a dark time for the world and our country.
When this is over, whenever that might be, we are going to have to think cautiously about laws, institutions, and guardrails to prevent this in the future. I know that any system you create can be exploited, but if we make it hard enough and the consequences bad enough, at least we can deter it. We aren’t ready for this conversation, but we will be having it here shortly.
It’s Time for the Superb Owl
Tomorrow, February 8th the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks will face off in Super Bowl LX on NBC (and if you’re old, you heard the chimes when you read NBC in your head). Anyway, I’m rooting for Seattle because the Patriots can get stuffed, however, the big news is never about the millionaires on the field or the billionaires running the plantation (they call it a league now). It’s all about the ads.
Two ads already stand out: Pepsi has stolen the lovable Polar Bear from Coke, and he likes Pepsi (brilliant) and Anthropic is running an add for Claude that is going to show people that AI can be useful to them in their everyday life. It is a nice change from the raft of crypto ads from a few years ago. In any case, the story about this game is always about the ads, and brands spend millions to secure their spot and create the perfect ad at the perfect moment to promote their brand in nearly every American home.
I like watching the ads because it is indicative of the cultural moment that we are going through at any given time. I’m always looking at whom the ads target, what are they saying, what are people doing and the stories being told. I got in an argument this week with someone who thinks that all of our current political problems has only to do with emotions and that everyone is too focused on their feelings and if that weren’t the case, then we would not have these problems. Emotions are certainly part of the problem, but the bigger problem is the stories that we tell ourselves.
One of the realities that is uncomfortable to realize about people is that we aren’t merely cold logic animals. We are deeply influenced by the stories told to us by our parents, our culture, where we grow up and what we experience. That is one of the interesting things about history, is that we learn the story of how we got to now. One of the tragedies of modern education is that we rarely teach the humanities anymore, and so people often don’t know how we got to where we are or what we learned in the past. They are missing the essential story of their country and society, and that can cause chaos (look outside for proof).
The reality is that our politics is deeply influenced by stories and Donald Trump, for better or worse, was able to create and sell a certain story (and it looks he had help from Russia via Epstein) and that story resonated because it gave people something to believe in. The Democratic Party has never defined itself in the marketplace, and they haven’t had a decent story to tell in years. One of the reasons that Democrats seem so “out of touch” is that rather than engaging with the stories that are being told, especially online, Progressives and others keep screeching about the fact that the story is being told at all. Hence, the efforts to control information (Twitter files) and the “censoring of conservative voices” that has caused major upheavals in media, social media and society. The stories that are told and talked about online have been summarily dismissed and marginalized but not only did they have some validity (see the Epstein files story above) but the Democratic Party has never participated in the discussion, and they got left out of it.
If they want to win the future, they are going to have to accept the new conversation happening, especially online and engage with the story being told, not the one they wish people believed. Now, you’re probably wondering what the hell this has to do with the Super Bowl. It doesn’t really, other than to remind us that humans use story to conceive of a reality that our brains cannot comprehend. So when you watch the ads this year, consider what story is being told by the companies making the ads and apply that thinking to politics and much will open up.
Articles of Interest
The thrilling conclusion to the Mystery Flavors series:
Keep up with The Cameron Journal Podcast and The Living Joke
The Interview:
The Cameron Journal Newshour:
The Living Joke:
Discover more from The Cameron Journal
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