Double Down News

Last updated

Double Down News
Type of site
News & Media Outlet
Founder(s) Yannis Mendez
URL www.doubledown.news
Launched2017
Current statusActive

Double Down News (DDN) is a British alternative media outlet founded in 2017 by Yannis Mendez. [1] Funded through Patreon, it produces films and interviews from a left-wing perspective. [2] Double Down News' contributors have included Peter Oborne, George Monbiot, [3] Guz Khan, [4] Nabil Abdul Rashid [5] and David Graeber. [6] The outlet has produced content sympathetic to Jeremy Corbyn [7] and critical of the Conservative Party. [8]

Contents

Content and coverage

Funded through Patreon, it produces interviews, films and short films from a left-wing perspective. [2]

DDN contributors have included former Daily Telegraph journalist Peter Oborne, Guardian columnist George Monbiot, [3] Darryl McDaniels, [9] Chris Packham, [10] Ken Loach, [11] Guz Khan, [4] Nabil Abdul Rashid, [5] Owen Jones, [12] David Graeber, [6] John McDonnell, [13] Peter Jukes, [14] and Matt Kennard. [15]

History

In August 2017, DDN published a video related to "Traingate", when Jeremy Corbyn had been accused of lying about a Virgin train being full and him being forced to sit on the floor. Jasper Jackson of the New Statesman reviewed that though its video "tells a convincing and detailed account of the whole affair", and reflects poorly on mainstream media reporting, the video was misleading. It presented widely broadcast footage as "never-before seen" and does not disclose that the videomaker capturing footage for Corbyn was a director of DDN. [7]

In October 2018, due to a "violation of community standards", Facebook removed a DDN video featuring Monbiot talking about the alleged atrocities of Christopher Columbus. [16] It was restored the following day, accompanied by an apology. [3]

In October 2022, it published a video by Oborne talking about the Conservative Party having been taken over by the super rich who pushed for tax cutting policies which was in the mini budget and then a U-turn was made by Liz Truss's government. [8]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jeremy Corbyn</span> UK Leader of the Opposition from 2015 to 2020 (born 1949)

Jeremy Bernard Corbyn is a British politician who served as Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party from 2015 to 2020. On the political left of the Labour Party, Corbyn describes himself as a socialist. He has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Islington North since 1983. As of October 2020, Corbyn sits in the House of Commons as an independent, following the suspension of the whip.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George Monbiot</span> English writer and political activist (born 1963)

George Joshua Richard Monbiot is a British journalist, author, and environmental and political activist. He writes a regular column for The Guardian and has written several books.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Hitchens</span> English journalist and author (born 1951)

Peter Jonathan Hitchens is an English conservative author, broadcaster, journalist, and commentator. He writes for The Mail on Sunday and was a foreign correspondent reporting from both Moscow and Washington, D.C. Peter Hitchens has contributed to The Spectator, The American Conservative, The Guardian, First Things, Prospect, and the New Statesman. His books include The Abolition of Britain, The Rage Against God, The War We Never Fought and The Phoney Victory.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Media Lens</span>

Media Lens is a British media analysis website established in 2001 by David Cromwell and David Edwards. Cromwell and Edwards are the site's editors and only regular contributors. Their aim is to scrutinise and question the mainstream media's coverage of significant events and issues and to draw attention to what they consider "the systemic failure of the corporate media to report the world honestly and accurately".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Graeber</span> American anthropologist and activist (1961–2020)

David Rolfe Graeber was an American anthropologist and anarchist activist. His influential work in economic anthropology, particularly his books Debt: The First 5,000 Years (2011), Bullshit Jobs (2018), and The Dawn of Everything (2021), and his leading role in the Occupy movement, earned him recognition as one of the foremost anthropologists and left-wing thinkers of his time.

Peter Alan Oborne is a British journalist and broadcaster. He is the former chief political commentator of The Daily Telegraph, from which he resigned in early 2015. He is author of The Rise of Political Lying, The Triumph of the Political Class, and The Assault on Truth: Boris Johnson, Donald Trump and the Emergence of a New Moral Barbarism, and along with Frances Weaver of the pamphlet Guilty Men. He has also authored a number of books about cricket. He writes a political column for Declassified UK, Double Down News, openDemocracy, Middle East Eye and a diary column for the Byline Times.

<i>Spiked</i> (magazine) British Internet-based magazine

Spiked is a British Internet magazine focusing on politics, culture and society. The magazine was founded in 2001 with the same editor and many of the same contributors as Living Marxism, which had closed in 2000 after losing a case for libel brought by ITN.

Seumas Patrick Charles Milne is a British journalist and political aide. He was appointed as the Labour Party's Executive Director of Strategy and Communications in October 2015 under Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn, initially on leave from The Guardian. In January 2017, he left The Guardian in order to work for the party full-time. He left the role upon Corbyn's departure as leader in April 2020.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Seymour (21st-century writer)</span> Northern Irish author

Richard Seymour is a Northern Irish author, commentator and owner of the blog Lenin's Tomb. His books included The Meaning of David Cameron (2010), Unhitched (2013), Against Austerity (2014) and Corbyn: The Strange Rebirth of Radical Politics (2016). Seymour was born in Ballymena, Northern Ireland to a Protestant family, and currently lives in London. A former member of the Socialist Workers Party, he left the organisation in March 2013. He completed his PhD in sociology at the London School of Economics under the supervision of Paul Gilroy. His thesis, dated 2016, was titled Cold War anticommunism and the defence of white supremacy in the southern United States. In the past he has written for publications such as The Guardian and Jacobin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Patreon</span> American crowdfunding website created in 2013

Patreon is a monetization platform operated by Patreon, Inc., that provides business tools for content creators to run a subscription service and sell digital products. It helps artists and other creators earn a recurring income by providing rewards and perks to its subscribers. Patreon charges a commission of 9 to 12 percent of creators' monthly income, in addition to payment processing fees.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stop the War Coalition</span> British anti-war group

The Stop the War Coalition (StWC), informally known simply as Stop the War, is a British group that campaigns against the United Kingdom's involvement in military conflicts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Virgin Trains East Coast</span> 2015–2018 UK train operating company

Virgin Trains East Coast (VTEC) was a train operating company in the United Kingdom that operated the InterCity East Coast franchise on the East Coast Main Line between London, Yorkshire, the North East and Scotland. It commenced operations on 1 March 2015, taking over from East Coast as a joint venture between Stagecoach (90%) and Virgin Group (10%).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ken Loach</span> British filmmaker (born 1936)

Kenneth Charles Loach is a British film director and screenwriter. His socially critical directing style and socialism are evident in his film treatment of social issues such as poverty, homelessness, and labour rights.

Momentum is a British left-wing political organisation which has been described as a grassroots movement supportive of the Labour Party; since January 2017, all Momentum members must be members of the party. It was founded in 2015 by Jon Lansman, Adam Klug, Emma Rees and James Schneider after Jeremy Corbyn's successful campaign to become Labour Party leader and it was reported to have between 20,000 and 30,000 members in 2021.

Ghulam Dustgir Khan, popularly known as Guz Khan, is a British comedian and actor. His TV appearances include Man Like Mobeen, Taskmaster, Our Flag Means Death and stand-up performances on Live at the Apollo.

George Eaton is a British writer and journalist. He is Senior Online Editor of the New Statesman, a position he was appointed to in February 2020. He was previously political editor from 2014 to 2018, joint deputy editor from 2018 to 2019, when he was demoted to Assistant Editor after insulting and deliberately misrepresenting his interviewee, the late Roger Scruton.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Novara Media</span> British media organisation

Novara Media is an independent, non-profit, left-wing media organisation based in the United Kingdom.

A list of alternative news media outlets in the United Kingdom.

<i>Dangerous Hero</i> 2019 non-fiction book by Tom Bower

Dangerous Hero: Corbyn's Ruthless Plot for Power is a 2019 biography of British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn written by British conservative writer, investigative journalist and biographer Tom Bower. It is an unfriendly portrait of Corbyn.

Byline Times is a British newspaper and website founded in March 2019 by Peter Jukes and Stephen Colegrave, who are also its executive editors. It is a development of Byline, a crowdfunding and media outlet platform founded in April 2015 by Seung-yoon Lee and Daniel Tudor.

References

  1. Queally, Jon (17 October 2018). "UPDATED: In Latest Fit of Censorship, Facebook Deletes Video Detailing Brutal Legacy of Christopher Columbus". Common Dreams . Retrieved 7 November 2021.
  2. 1 2 Clarke-Ezzidio, Harry (29 October 2021). "In the post-Corbyn world, what next for alternative left media?". New Statesman . Retrieved 6 November 2021.
  3. 1 2 3 Walker, James (17 October 2018). "Facebook accused of 'censorship' after deleting video on Christopher Columbus by Guardian journalist George Monbiot". Press Gazette . Retrieved 6 November 2021.
  4. 1 2 Campbell, Tina (29 May 2017). "A comedian asked why Muslims commit terror has a brilliant answer". International Business Times UK. Retrieved 7 November 2021.
  5. 1 2 Ng, Kate (12 March 2021). "Queen and Prince Charles 'back William' over public comments about Harry and Meghan race claims". The Independent . Retrieved 7 November 2021.
  6. 1 2 Hains, Tim (16 October 2020). "David Graeber On Centrism: The Symbiotic Relationship Between "Sneering Elitists" And "Scam Artists" Pretending To Be Fascists". RealClearPolitics . Retrieved 7 November 2021.
  7. 1 2 Jackson, Jasper (24 August 2017). "Did the mainstream media smear Jeremy Corbyn over Traingate?". New Statesman. Retrieved 7 November 2021.
  8. 1 2 "Peter Oborne Absolutely DEMOLISHES Liz Truss". YouTube .
  9. What the Fuck happened to Hip-Hop? on YouTube
  10. Steerpike (14 May 2021). "Chris Packham in fresh BBC bias drama". The Spectator . Retrieved 6 November 2021.
  11. Double Down News (22 September 2021). "Ken Loach absolutely DESTROYS Keir Starmer". Double Down News. Retrieved 6 November 2021.
  12. Double Down News (29 April 2020). "Coronavirus & The Revolving Door Between Media and Politics - Owen Jones". Double Down News. Retrieved 7 November 2021.
  13. Coburg, Tom (30 October 2021). "Journalists expose the deadly risks Julian Assange faces in US prisons". The Canary . Retrieved 6 November 2021.
  14. "Double Down News: Peter Jukes – The Weaponisation of Coronavirus Conspiracy Theories". Brave New Europe. 21 March 2021. Retrieved 6 November 2021.
  15. Double Down News (4 August 2021). "Boris Johnson's War on Journalism Could See Journalists Jailed for up to 14 Years". Double Down News. Retrieved 7 November 2021.
  16. Walker, James (19 October 2018). "Facebook sorry for deleting video on Christopher Columbus by Guardian's George Monbiot amid call for 'transparent appeals system'". Press Gazette. Retrieved 7 November 2021.