After the highly suspect ouster of The Real News founder and longtime director Paul Jay, Chris Hedges' departure will deliver the nail in the coffin to a once-trailblazing alt-media organization. T.M. Scruggs, the lone sugardaddy of The Real News, has driven this outlet into the ground with his erratic personality and reflexively imperialist views.

The Real News will now follow hollowed-out or defunct online "progressive" outlets like AlterNet, Salon, Truthdig and many others into oblivion. These organizations rose to prominence during the GW Bush/post-9/11 era, marketing themselves as antiwar alternatives to the establishment, then gradually collapsed under the weight of liberal foundation donors, Obama worship, then Trump-era Russiagate hysteria, while their staff became infested with dysfunctional conformists driven by The Current Thing.

I have known Hedges for about two decades, and learned a lot from him throughout that time. I'm excited for his next act as a truly independent journalist.