Jack Posobiec spoke with James O'Keefe, founder and CEO of O’Keefe Media Group, aptly monickered OMG, on Human Events Daily's Sunday Special and dug into the full story of O'Keefe's ousting from the company he founded, Project Veritas, and how citizen journalism will be the focus of his new, much anticipated venture.
"I think putting my name in it was something that most people wanted to do, because I've already had one company stolen from me, so I think it's a little more difficult when your name is in it," O'Keefe said.
O'Keefe said that he hopes O’Keefe Media will be be like the "Uber for citizen journalism" and that it's a subscription based platform where "you can actually go on there and for $1000 bucks, you can actually sponsor a camera, one of our special cameras that we will put into the hands of the willing." The platform has subscription levels that include $5000 to $20 with the goal being "to arm 1000s of people with digital cameras and teach them about ethics. And how to use the cameras and so forth."
To citizen journalists, Posobiec said "don't sit back and wait for permission" and he encouraged them to go out and do the work. O'Keefe added that a lot of people complain and whine about wanting to do something, but when the rubber meets the road, many don't follow through.
"We're going to train and mobilize an army of citizen journalists, because power hates sunlight," O'Keefe said, and later added, "They can't stop an army of people. That never happened before."
"Imagine thousands and thousands of people sticking together," O'Keefe said. "That's what the powerful people fear, like thousands of whistleblowers coming out at the same time and yes, it's hard. But there's also a lot of grace that comes along with that so-called suffering. You're adhering to the truth, you're being loyal to your conscience."
O'Keefe said he stands by his sources, as he did with the recent expose of Pfizer. "Pfizer is going to have to go through me to get to you," he said.
In January, O'Keefe and Project Veritas released a video exposing a director of research and development at the company who claimed the giant was trying to "mutate" Covid with "Directed Evolution" for the purpose of developing future vaccines. O'Keefe was removed as CEO from the organization he founded barely a week later in February when the board placed him on paid leave.
"I never really paid attention to board governance. I was the CEO. And I was taking responsibility for everything. I kind of ran it in an unorthodox way," O'Keefe said.
"I think in a media organization in a media company, most media news organizations are corrupted at the top. In traditional newsrooms, journalists don't really do journalism. investigative journalism is a thing of the past, because most organizations are pursuing a profit or they don't understand how to run a balance sheet," O'Keefe added. "Having ethics and integrity" is critical, he said, though not always profitable.
Project Veritas, which O'Keefe founded in 2011, was known for working with whistleblowers to expose corruption, especially from far-left ideology, in large institutions. "I spent 14 years of my life building a credible news organization. And suddenly there was an emergency to oust me all of a sudden, which doesn't make sense to me," O'Keefe said.
Now that O'Keefe was essnetially pushed out by the Board of Directors, his new venture is going to be fierce competition to his previous one.
You can listen to the full episode here.
