A personal message from Cenk Uygur

We are not like other media. We have no billion dollar parent corporation. We started in my living room. Yet here we are as the leading digital news network, beating all of the corporate media online, including CNN. How did we do it? With you!

Now I have a very big dream I want to tell you about -- it’s a dream I’ve had all my life. I’ve known this was where we were going all along. Now is the time. But this all depends on you. Please hear me out.

Thanks to you, the TYT army, no one can prevent us from reporting the truth and speaking our minds. No one can water us down. No one can prevent us from covering any topic that Wall Street, the Oligarchs, the establishment, Democrats, Republicans, or Billionaire funders don’t want you to hear.

This is very real for us. When Sirius offered us $250K, but told us we had to end our online TV show, we said no. When MSNBC offered us a huge amount of money -- because we were one of the top shows beating CNN -- but wanted us to stop holding the Democratic establishment accountable, we said no. We knew where this was going, and we were never going to compromise.

Before I went to MSNBC -- a show that you helped us get by writing and posting thousands of times -- I promised you that I wasn’t going to sell out. And it was because of you that I had the freedom to keep that promise, and keep TYT going, and keep it growing.

Then, when we lost our home at Current TV, we turned to you and asked if you’d help us build a new home. You answered our crowdfunding campaign with $400,000 that built us our first real studio.

Today we’re so much more than a show. We truly are a network, with more than five billion views, we serve more people online every day than some of the highest rated shows on FOX, MSNBC and CNN.

But it’s not enough. For the sake of our country and our democracy, it’s not enough. When I look at where politics are going in this country, I know why it’s getting this bad. It’s because the news media have let us down. So called journalists have abdicated their duty to ask the hard questions and investigate the most important stories in exchange for the money and the perks of the corporate media.

So here is our dream -- one that I know you have shared with us all along: We want to build TYT into a full-fledged competitor to the mainstream newsmedia. We’re actually just a few steps away from it -- but they are pretty big steps. This is going to be a big lift and we need all of you to come along with us.

Between now and the inauguration, we want to raise enough money to hire four new powerful investigative journalist teams. Each team will be anchored by a world-class investigative journalist. I can’t wait to tell you who we have in mind. You are going to love these people. But we need to raise the money first to get them to sign on. Each team will include editors, producers and camera people. We’re going to do this right.

With just one full-time reporter – Jordan Chariton – we’ve already broken so many important stories. We broke the Donna Brazile story, we broke the lead poisoning story in Indiana before the New York Times (based on a tip from one of our viewers), we covered the DNC tilting the primaries toward Clinton before any of the emails ever came out confirming it and we have been the only media outlet to be at Standing Rock from the beginning to end. And it was our very own Wes Clark and Michael Wood, responding to Jordan’s coverage, who brought 4,000 veterans there to protect the water protectors. Would that story have broken through without the coverage that you made possible? Look at what you have already built!

Now imagine what we could do with FIVE full reporting teams! Let me at ‘em. We have to keep Trump accountable. We have to keep the establishment accountable. No one is doing investigative pieces on the donors, the appointees, the leaders in Congress. There are so many things to investigate and uncover. Let us stand up for the American people.

So yes, I’m asking for you to help us build a full-fledged alternative to the corporate newsmedia. This big next step means raising two million dollars to build this killer team. That’s nothing for the corporate media. It literally would pay for just 10% of one of their “star” anchors salaries. I’m not kidding. But for us we could build five full investigative teams and unleash them on Trump and the establishment.

They’re not coming for us, we’re coming for them. Please donate $3, $20 or whatever you can afford to make this dream a reality. Give us the power to go toe-to-toe with the mainstream media.

The only reason we haven’t been able to do this before is that it was too expensive. But I think we can do this together. When you guys get us to $500,000 we’ll unveil who the next reporter is that will lead the next team. Hopefully, we’ll get to all four new reporters. Let’s give the establishment something to think about when they’re dressing up for their inaugural balls. I can’t wait!

We – you and us together – are the watchers on the wall. We are the sword in the darkness. And now our watch has begun. Help us put people on that wall so that they don’t get away with anything on our watch!

Yours,

Cenk Uygur