BREAKING: Raw Hires White House Reporter

And your subscription made it happen. Thank you!

Hey, it’s John.

I want to share some news. And I want you to be the first to hear it, because you’re the reason it happened.

With your support, Raw America has hired a White House reporter.

His name is Brian Karem. And I could not be more thrilled to introduce him.

Your subscription made this possible. Yes, I mean you. You’re the reason I could pick up the phone and bring a reporter of Brian’s caliber onto this team. Not a billionaire. Not a corporate parent. You.

So let me tell you who he is.

Brian has covered every president since Ronald Reagan. More than forty years on the beat. He’s a senior White House correspondent, and former political analyst for CNN. He’s written seven books. He’s an Emmy-nominated reporter. And through all of it, he’s built a reputation as one of the most fearless journalists this country has.

And I mean fearless.

Early in his career, Brian went to jail — actual jail — rather than reveal a confidential source. He fought it all the way to the Supreme Court, and he won the National Press Club’s Freedom of the Press Award for it. He didn’t just talk about protecting sources. He sat in a cell to do it.

Brian was the first American reporter allowed inside Pablo Escobar’s palatial prison after the drug lord’s escape from Colombian authorities. He was one of the first reporters into Kuwait City after its liberation in the Gulf War. When the story was dangerous, Brian went anyway.

But here’s the part that tells you exactly why he belongs at Raw America.

Six weeks before the 2020 election, Brian stood in front of Donald Trump and asked him a simple question: would he accept a peaceful transfer of power?

Trump’s answer — that if you stopped counting the ballots, there wouldn’t be a transfer of power — became one of the very first pieces of evidence the January 6 Committee presented to the country.

One reporter. One question. Nobody else asked it, but Brian did.

Brian’s the reporter who stood up in that White House briefing room and confronted Sarah Huckabee Sanders to her face over this administration’s war on the press. Out loud. On camera.

And when Trump’s people retaliated by trying to strip Brian of his White House press pass, he sued them. And he won. He beat the Trump White House and expanded press freedom for every reporter who came after him.

That’s the man who now works for us. For you.

Here’s what he’s going to do.

Brian is on the ground in Washington, on the beat for Raw America. Covering not just Trump, but the FBI, the Pentagon, and Congress. The entire machinery of power that the billionaire networks have quietly decided to stop watching.

This is exactly what we set out to build. Journalism that holds power accountable, done by someone who has never once taken no for an answer. Someone who’s already proven his mettle by going toe to toe with the White House and winning.

When Brian asks a question, the people in power don’t get to wave him off. He doesn’t leave. He doesn’t flinch.

And because our reporting is funded by you and only you, Brian gets to be that fearless. He doesn’t answer to Bari Weiss. He doesn’t answer to Jeff Bezos. He doesn’t answer to an advertiser the White House can lean on. He answers to you.

Think about what we’ve built together.

In just six months, we’ve interviewed senators, whistleblowers, and ambassadors. We’ve broken news the corporate press wouldn’t touch. And now we’ve hired a White House reporter with four decades of experience and a Supreme Court fight on his résumé.

Six months. Imagine where we’ll be in a year.

While CBS is slashing 60 Minutes and gutting the newsroom that gave us Watergate-era accountability, we’re doing the opposite. We’re building. We’re hiring. We’re growing the new media this country needs to save its democracy.

They’re tearing it down. We’re building it up. That’s the whole story, right there.

None of it happens without you. So I just want to say thank you. Truly. You didn’t just fund a newsletter. You put a fearless reporter back in the White House briefing room, where he belongs.

Please help me welcome Brian Karem to Raw America.

We’re just getting started. Stick with me, and let’s keep fighting back.

— John Byrne / Founder, Raw America and Raw Story

P.S. Keep an eye on your inbox — Brian’s first dispatches for Raw America are coming soon, and I think you’re going to see very quickly why we brought him on. This is what your subscription built.