Consortium News: 28-12-2025,
During Consortium News‘ 30th Anniversary, Editor-in-Chief Joe Lauria explains what independent media and ethics mean to CN.
CN Editor Joe Lauria made the following brief remarks at the Mut Zum Ethiks conference in Switzerland in August. The min. audio recording is above.
By Joe Lauria
Special to Consortium News
CN at 30
We’re celebrating our 30th anniversary of Consortium News. Two of our columnists are sitting at this table. That would be Scott Ritter and Patrick Lawrence.
What does “independent” mean, when you talk about journalism? Mainstream reporters think that they’re independent. You know, Patrick and I worked in the mainstream. I may have not have thought that I was being independent working for The Wall Street Journal and the Sunday Times of London and Johannesburg Star and the Montreal Gazette, but my colleagues thought they were.
I mean, there’s even a newspaper in the U.K. called The Independent. What are they independent from? Are they independent of government? Are they independent from corporations, their advertisers, for example? Or are they independent from the public, from the interests of the public?
Journalism is supposed to be representing the interests of the public upon whom they depend for newsstand sales,