The Critical Compass Podcast - April 18, 2026


John Bolton： Legacy Media is Dead, You Are The Media Now


Episode Stats


Length

16 minutes

Words per minute

159.97876

Word count

2,711

Sentence count

153

Harmful content

Hate speech

1

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 I don't go to too many events. I don't. As Jason said, I worked in radio for 35 years.
00:00:10.000 I used to have to go to everything. And when I moved to Calgary, I didn't have to go to anything,
00:00:14.220 and I felt good about that. I go to very few events. I go to just important ones. And this
00:00:20.140 is an important one. You know, I've met Jason a couple of times in person. I know him more
00:00:26.360 through a camera, and I think we've become kind of friends, which I think is great.
00:00:31.040 And I have to say, I was a little bit nervous about doing this speech.
00:00:34.200 It was funny, I was listening to Viva Fry, I listened to a bit of what The Fringe said,
00:00:37.720 and I think you're going to hear a common thread here today, but Viva was reading my
00:00:41.420 mind in a way. I was a bit nervous about doing this. I put off preparing for this speech
00:00:46.760 until yesterday. I have plenty of experience with public speaking.
00:00:52.540 I'm comfortable doing it, but I wasn't sure that I belonged here.
00:00:56.360 I had Jason on the other day on my channel to talk about this event, to explain the reason for it, bearing witness.
00:01:04.340 What's the dictionary definition of that?
00:01:06.660 Well, it means to testify to, provide evidence for, or affirm the truth of an event, experience, or fact, often acting as a first-hand observer.
00:01:18.220 When I posted my video with Jason, I created a thumbnail of hundreds of people holding up cell phones.
00:01:23.940 Can you hold up your cell phone if you've got it handy?
00:01:25.760 Just hold it up. Hold it up.
00:01:29.160 And I titled it, We Are the Media.
00:01:34.100 Now, Viva talked about journalists, and if you look up there under my name, it says Alberta Journalist.
00:01:39.800 We are all journalists.
00:01:41.620 There is an argument, a criticism made by people who are in the mainstream media
00:01:45.240 that someone with a phone isn't a journalist.
00:01:48.880 You know what they say is a journalist. I know. I went to school with them.
00:01:52.860 I went to broadcasting school many years ago.
00:01:55.760 They're high school educated, taught how to edit tape and video.
00:01:59.560 They ask some questions.
00:02:00.620 They put together a 60-second news story to be played on the radio or television, and that is it.
00:02:06.000 And you can do all of that with this and more.
00:02:11.160 Many of you here are more educated than a lot of the people that are giving you the news on CBC and CTV
00:02:17.120 and other news organizations that are considered legitimate news organizations.
00:02:21.360 Now, I'm not saying that people who don't have, who only have a high school education are not educated.
00:02:27.360 For the most part, that's all I have.
00:02:29.040 And, well, look at me, I'm rather intelligent, right?
00:02:33.020 So, I'm here to bear witness today.
00:02:34.680 So, who am I?
00:02:35.640 Some of you may know who I am.
00:02:37.360 Why am I here?
00:02:38.880 I wanted to know.
00:02:39.680 I've wondered that myself.
00:02:41.260 I'm here amongst some people who are far more accomplished and established in the task of bearing witness.
00:02:47.340 Stockwell Day, Viva Fry, my friend Derek, unacceptable fringe, Chris Scott, Francis
00:02:53.720 Whittleson, others here today. Stockwell Day, former leader of the Canadian Alliance. This man
00:02:59.780 has made history, for God's sakes. Worked with Stephen Harper. I think he worked with Ralph
00:03:05.340 Klein, if I remember correctly as well. Viva Fry, and if you're going to describe someone who
00:03:10.680 defines bearing witness, it would be him.
00:03:15.380 I mean, here's a guy who during the convoy had the audacity to do a radical thing and go out to
00:03:22.020 talk to people. Bearing witness indeed, and it's something that the mainstream media did not do.
00:03:28.420 If they'd only spoken to those people, we wouldn't have got what Jason was talking about earlier,
00:03:33.320 if they're a bunch of Nazis, they're fringe, things like that, right?
00:03:36.260 so i i think about somebody like francis widdowson who has you know been arrested thrown out of
00:03:45.680 places for just speaking the truth i don't know whether you noticed but the other day
00:03:50.320 at the liberal convention somebody walked up and told the same lie about kamloops and people being
00:03:57.420 buried in the ground 12 million dollars 20 dollars a shovel you can buy a lot of shovels with 12
00:04:04.560 million dollars. In fact, I did the numbers on it, 600,000. You could dig up all of Kamloops
00:04:09.400 with the amount of money they've spent, but they haven't dug a single hole.
00:04:14.860 Now, I am new to this. I'm still growing, and I have a background from the previous world of
00:04:20.140 bearing witness, a previous world that is lacking and dying, some and most might say thankfully.
00:04:26.160 And I checked in on YouTube. I checked the other day. I got on YouTube on December 16, 2007. I've
00:04:31.580 only been active since really November 2024. I'm a retired radio announcer. I
00:04:37.620 worked in radio and television for 35 years. My first job back in 1986. I'm
00:04:42.620 getting older. I worked in Sarnia at CKJD. Some of you may know the name Sarnia.
00:04:48.420 It's been in the news this week. A specific woman walked across the aisle
00:04:52.320 and joined the Liberal Party. I worked in Chatham, Ontario. Back then, you know, we
00:04:58.840 actually played records on the radio long before the days of the internet and
00:05:03.960 digital. Spent 20 years in Eastern Ontario working for CJSS, CFLG, CJUL
00:05:09.640 radio and I'm telling you this because I have an interesting perspective on
00:05:13.780 bearing witness. I did a job called John Bolton's Cornwall Today on a small
00:05:19.060 market radio station but I spoke with Stephen Harper, Dalton McGinty, Jack
00:05:22.580 Leighton, Stefan Dion, Elizabeth May, Justin Trudeau, Senator Ken Dryden, astronauts, musicians,
00:05:31.000 hundreds of people. I was destined to live here in Alberta. I was born in a place called Petrolia,
00:05:37.220 Ontario. Sounds a lot like petroleum, one of the first places they found oil in Canada. People
00:05:43.220 there who were born in Petrolia are called hard oilers. I lived in Sarnia, which I call my hometown,
00:05:47.700 And as you know, a lot of Alberta oil goes to Sarnia, right?
00:05:52.420 And I moved here about 15 years ago.
00:05:54.980 My wife lost her job.
00:05:56.280 We decided that change was good.
00:05:58.380 And I worked for some Calgary radio stations for a while.
00:06:01.080 I fill in talk show host.
00:06:02.700 I did news, sports, traffic, and weather.
00:06:05.540 And a few years ago, I left radio.
00:06:07.440 But it definitely is not the same business that I worked in.
00:06:11.400 I noticed a shift about 10 years ago.
00:06:13.340 It was around 2018-2019 when the Liberal government started funding the news media.
00:06:20.780 Now, the news directors and management of the places I work for over the years would be disgusted with this.
00:06:28.900 They would consider it a threat to editorial independence, an erosion of public trust, a risk of political favoritism.
00:06:36.960 they would be disgusted that citizens would be forced to support news
00:06:41.520 organizations that may not agree that they may not agree with through their
00:06:45.360 tax dollars and other things as well these people and their beliefs like me
00:06:51.200 are now gone the news media line up like pigs at a trough for their government
00:06:57.060 handouts George Bernard Shaw said the politician that robs Peter to pay Paul
00:07:01.980 will always have a friend in Paul. And that's what it's like with the news
00:07:07.060 media these days. I also noticed a shift when it came to social issues. The young
00:07:12.720 people who had been educated or I guess indoctrinated in school would cover
00:07:16.980 stories that aligned with their worldview. Getting a contrary opinion for fairness
00:07:21.960 and clarity wasn't even considered. Good journalistic practices like neutrality,
00:07:27.360 fairness, objectivity, impartiality, integrity, and credibility has become less important.
00:07:34.020 Advancing a narrative is more important these days. Now, I've been a moderator at debates,
00:07:39.600 and I always was tougher on the conservatives because everybody knew I was a conservative. I
00:07:45.340 wanted to maintain my credibility. That was important to me. News media has lost credibility.
00:07:50.940 the people in the news business today groups of people protesting the latest woke cause is more
00:07:59.600 important than thousands of people showing up for another thing and i think of something that
00:08:03.660 comes to mind and i've heard covet mentioned a number of times here today thousands of people
00:08:08.540 would show up each sunday during covet at central memorial park in calgary to protest covet
00:08:15.560 restrictions and vaccine mandates. The radio station I worked at never showed up. I did.
00:08:23.140 I covered it on my YouTube channel, something I wouldn't even suggest to the news director at the
00:08:28.380 radio station I worked at. They were busy pushing COVID restrictions and vaccine mandates.
00:08:35.840 Central Memorial Park was less than five minutes by foot from the radio station I worked at.
00:08:40.100 then there was the woke indoctrination at work yearly training on proper business practices
00:08:48.080 was replaced by long learning sessions on how to address people with their proper pronouns
00:08:53.280 grievance sessions were held for all the proper intersectional groups and they had 12 of them and
00:08:59.680 I can't even remember but they had 12 this is what the modern media has become so where did
00:09:06.300 I begin with being a person bearing witness, and it's been a little bit of a journey to get here,
00:09:11.000 but you might find this interesting. I thought it was around November of 2024,
00:09:16.160 but I thought back, and I realized the power of YouTube in January of the same year.
00:09:22.440 That year, we had a very long cold spell. You might remember. Temperatures in southern Alberta
00:09:29.160 were in the minus 30s for a couple of weeks. I woke up one morning, it was minus 36 Celsius in
00:09:34.720 Calgary, the whole province was under an extreme cold warning. The night before, we got an alert
00:09:41.240 on our phone. Do you remember this? Conserve energy, we were told. Don't do laundry. Don't
00:09:47.300 plug in your electric car, or the power might fail. I picked up my phone and recorded a video.
00:09:54.920 My channel at that point had about 400 subscribers. How in the heck could a province like Alberta,
00:10:01.000 a province with more, and I said this, more energy than God, be in this predicament.
00:10:08.800 I ranted about Rachel Nautry and coal-fired power, lashed out at the Trudeau government
00:10:14.200 and the Liberal government, and wondered how such a blessed province could be at a point where,
00:10:18.980 if the power went off, for only a short time, millions of people would be at risk of freezing
00:10:24.880 to death. Now, it doesn't take long for your house to get to minus 36 when it's
00:10:30.800 minus 36 outside. I posted the video and forgot about it, but a few
00:10:36.680 days later I looked, and 8,200 people had watched my video. And again, I had about
00:10:42.900 400 people watching my channel. Didn't post much that year, but I think the
00:10:48.140 Liberals were trying to ban plastic straws. I remember waving a plastic straw
00:10:52.680 in front of my camera. The liberals say if I throw this into a recycling bin or the garbage,
00:10:57.860 it'll end up in the ocean. How the hell does this end up in the ocean? I live 14 hours from the
00:11:04.180 ocean. And that's what I said. This is insane. If it goes into a recycling bin, I expect it to go
00:11:12.180 recycling. If it goes into a garbage bin, I expect it to go to a landfill. If that's not happening,
00:11:16.580 somebody needs to go to jail. And that's what I said. So I'm waving around this plastic straw,
00:11:20.980 But it was December 21st, 2024, when I knew I was on to something.
00:11:26.140 Short history lesson here.
00:11:27.340 December 21st, 2024 was when Jagmeet Singh decided
00:11:30.660 he was going to introduce a motion of non-confidence in the Liberal government.
00:11:36.380 Now, Parliament went on Christmas vacation on December the 19th.
00:11:42.660 Singh and the NDP propped up the Trudeau and the Liberals for years.
00:11:46.520 Paulyev's riding high in the polls.
00:11:48.220 next Prime Minister of Canada with a landslide nothing was gonna come of what
00:11:53.320 Jagmeet Singh decided to do here plus Singh is just waiting things out to get
00:11:57.580 his ironclad pension in February worth millions while seniors in Canada got
00:12:03.680 peanuts from CPP for working for a lifetime I was pissed I did a short rant
00:12:12.040 on this called and I'm gonna bleep out the word I called it Jagmeet Singh is
00:12:16.160 the biggest piece of blank in Canadian political history and I put it on my
00:12:19.760 YouTube channel so more than a hundred and two thousand people have watched
00:12:32.900 that video my subscriber count at the time was 500 a hundred and two thousand
00:12:41.520 people watch that video. Then I realized I had a voice. I didn't call it bearing witness, but I
00:12:48.280 guess it was, and I was. Over the next several months, we know what happened. Trudeau resigned
00:12:54.360 on January 6th, throwing the liberals into a leadership campaign. Carney announced his
00:12:58.940 candidacy on the 16th of January. Singh got his pension, probably ran to his Rolex authorized
00:13:04.620 dealer to pick up a new solid gold Datejust. I'm sure he did. Carney won the leadership job,
00:13:10.420 won the election but this was a great time to bear witness suddenly more
00:13:15.640 people were subscribing to my channel I was making a video a day and what I
00:13:19.060 thought was interesting some videos would hit others would miss but I was
00:13:23.440 doing my own thing with my own perspective the election was great for
00:13:27.960 followers I was talking with the fringe it was good for him too they started to
00:13:32.140 go up fast it was at 20,000 I was at 25,000 I was at 35,000 and wow all of a
00:13:40.120 sudden I was a youtuber and I'm 60 years old people were looking for alternatives
00:13:47.720 they were looking for information they couldn't find on traditional media they
00:13:51.460 no longer trusted the media they grew up with now this is where things get really
00:13:56.440 bizarre this is crazy as I said I worked in radio for 35 years mostly in small
00:14:02.520 market radio stations my friend Scott who was the best man at my wedding and he
00:14:08.480 was at my house a couple of years back when we renewed our our vows he gave
00:14:12.880 gave me a call and I was talking on the phone with him and he you know we
00:14:16.520 generally would talk about daily life but he asked me what are you doing these
00:14:19.220 days he was the news director at the radio station I worked at for years was
00:14:24.080 in different business now so what are you doing I so well I'm I'm semi-retired
00:14:28.320 now I'm on my 60s and I did some radio here he knew about that it worked for a
00:14:33.480 cycling organization for a time but I told him I was a youtuber and he said
00:14:39.300 what I said I'm a youtuber I know it sounds weird but I'm now a youtuber well
00:14:45.980 thank you he said well how many people subscribe to your channel and at that
00:14:50.520 point it was about 40,000 he said are you kidding I said no and here's where it
00:14:56.760 gets really bizarre I told him that prior to the election in the month or so
00:15:02.440 before, when things were really humming along and there was lots of interest, more people heard me
00:15:09.000 on my YouTube channel than had heard me in my entire 35 years on radio. And you could have heard
00:15:21.920 a pin drop, just silence. And that is true. My channel is now within a few subscriptions from 0.99
00:15:30.360 about 50,000. I am proof that we all have a voice. I'm proof that we can all bear witness regardless
00:15:39.920 of age, regardless of social status or income. I'm proof that we are the media. You have a mini
00:15:48.840 television studio in your pocket. Radio and television people from 40 years ago when I started,
00:15:56.780 they couldn't dream of such a thing this is science fiction 40 years ago ladies and gentlemen
00:16:03.020 use this have a voice bear witness thanks very much to jason and his wife for having me here
00:16:14.880 i do appreciate it and you all have a great day thank you
00:16:26.780 Thank you.