With more and more people distrusting major newspapers across America, alternative outlets have recieved more attention, and more trust.  From blogs to podcasts, the alternative media has made headway and is now a serious contender in bringing news to the masses worldwide.

However, not everything is peaches and cream in this movement to replace what is now known in some circles as the legacy media.  There have been controversies ranging from accusations of people selling out victims in need for a few bucks to questionable operating practices.  Take the Guerrilla News Network for example.  Here is a group that at first glance attempts to allow ordinary people to become the media in a sense.  Everyone who signs up gets a blog of their own, and off they go, writing stories.  The ones that appear on the front page of the website get there through a system of voting.

Despite the positive publicity in the past, even this group is mired in controversy.  There have been accusations of harrassment from the same people in their forums over and over again when anybody posts anything pertaining to the theory that 9/11 was a form fo domestic terrorism rather than foreign.  One of these users accused of harrassment, Shogo, was also employed as the coder for the GNN website.  Stephen Marshall was not so forthcoming when questioned by this.  A slip up and a saved screenshot later, the accusations of conflict of interest is proved.  The person behind Shogo created a new GNN user specifically for the coding of the website: Coder.  This was something not quite new either, and was indicitive of the potential problems of a frontpage in which the articles appearing was based upon voting.

Jesse Passwaters, a former member of GNN, tried to prove that point many times, and he did so openly.  The creation of multiple user accounts on GNN are referred to as sock puppets.  He is the individual known online as Gren, and it was he who has done most of the research in the past pertaining to GNN and one of the main founders, Anthony Lappe, but more on that later.  Before getting into too much detail concerning the Geurrilla News Network, it must be understood that it is not the first group to be surrounded by controversy.

In this article, an examination of three other groups will be made in order to illustrate that it is not only GNN itself that has proved to be controversial.  The three groups include From the Wilderness, Democracy Now, and WING.

This small group was based in State College, Pennsylvania.  After doing a different publication, Babel Magazine, and a radio show, Victor Thorn (a.k.a. Scott Makufka), and Lisa Guliani attempted to start an alternative media group that would have major, major allies in the likes of Jeff Rense and Rumor Mill News, but it was not to be, so instead an Internet television show that used Realplayer technology was the mainstay, hence, they were also known as WING TV.  They got their start in 2004 and they had a slew of well known guests, such as Phil Jayhan, Dave vonKleist, Dylan Avery, Anthony J. Hilder, Jack Blood, and many others.

The controversy started early with this duo, but they were simply agreeing with what others were saying.  Amy Goodman of Democracy Now hosted a debate of sorts pertaining to 9/11, and it appeared to be a hostile debate (when the other debates were not hostile at all), but more on that later in this article.  Needless to say, they have criticized Goodman and Democracy Now for being "left gatekeepers" pertaining to 9/11.  In fact, the main topic this group focused on was the attack of September 11, 2001.

They have also been critical of Kyle Hence for not focusing on certain issues of 9/11 as well as Daniel Hopsicker, who did an investigation into a few of the individuals named as the hijackers.  The first major conflict however was with an individual named Michael Ruppert, the founder and first editor in chief of the newsletter From the Wilderness.  He was one of the first individuals who questioned the official story of 9/11.

They attempted to get him on as a guest for their TV show online, but he refused.  According to them, he was a very paranoid man.  Using refusals to look at physical evidence as supporting points, Victor Thorn accused him of being a saboteur of the 9/11 Truth Movement, of fearmongering through his promotion of the Peak Oil theory (the idea that oil production has peaked and is in decline), and of advocating world population reduction.  A list of ten questions was sent to Ruppert, which he answered.  This did not stop Thorn from accusing him of damaging the 9/11 Truth Movement however.  The controversy does not end here.

Ruppert had gained the suspicion of others, and using that in addition to their criticism of radio talk show host Art Bell in an attempt to build credibility, their next target became a well known individual in the alternative media field: Alex Jones.

After the tenth anniversary of the Oklahoma City Bombing, in which an event was set up for those who were investigating the attack itself, the question was asked, "Where was Alex Jones?"  From there, they accused him of censorship, an accusation not entirely new anyway.  I did an initial investigation into their claims, and used The Wayback Machine in an attempt to see if an article from Randy Lavello had indeed been altered, but nothing much was available information-wise.  The only way that one could possibly conclude that the accusation was even potentially true was by looking at the filename itself, which had a date, in comparrison to the first entry that showed up in The Wayback Machine's list of archives for that very web page itself.

At first, I myself concluded that it was indeed possible, and using information from James Lloyd, I also concluded that there was something shady surrounding Jones himself.  In addition, Jack Blood and Jeff Rense were criticized and targetted for being company men of GCN (Genesis Communications Network), a radio network that broadcasts their radio programs.  However, their credibility started to decrease following an article that stated that GCN was an affiliate of ABC (American Broadcast Corporation) due to the fact that they rented satellite time for puproses of syndication.

Unfortunately, Sonny Crack, a sometime radio talk show host of Revere Radio Network and hip-hop artist, who actually has a background in commercial radio, saw something wrong with the article itself, and Lisa Guliani was accused of lying.  Industry-wise, renting time from a company for satellite use does not make one an affiliate of that company (in much the same way that paying your Interent Service Provider does not make you an affiliate of that company).

Noticing that the duo had done parodies of Alex Jones (another individual pretended to be Jones in a mock interview in which he was accused of only wanting to sell his videos), Art Bell (in which a fake exorcism, involving the removal of Masonic symobols from.... let's just say a very uncomfortable part of his body took place), and Jeff Rense (in which they portrayed him as a Barbie Doll), Crack decided to do a radio parody of his own, which some found to be in poor taste.  In this adult parody, Lisa Guliani was paid $500 to perform certain sexual acts while being recorded.  Listening to the episode of that particular show, it is easy to point out that such a thing was more than simply patently absurd (which is the point of some parodies... attempt to make the lie so obvious that it is entertaining).

Soon afterwords, Robb Revere recieved a phone call from agent Steve Collins from the FBI concerning the parody that Sonny Crack did of Lisa Guliani.  Again, I went to the Revere Radio Network website and perused their forums.  I even e-mailed Sonny Crack and Robb Revere about the incident.  Also, I listened to their reactions, and began to realize that they were not the demons they were made out to be.

They were going to be guests on Deadline Live and Lisa Guliani was invited by Robb Revere and Sonny Crack to appear on the show to give her side of the story.  For that, Ted Anderson of GCN was threatened with a lawsuit, and after discussion between Jack Blood, the show's host, Revere, and Crack, they concluded that it wouldn't be worth it to risk GCN getting sued over one radio show.  It is important to note that Anderson never said for the two not to appear on Deadline Live.

In September of 2005, I offered a newstip to Robb Revere himself about the last blogger in New Orleans.  This was at the time of Hurricane Katrina, and I passed the information to him as test: to see if he cared.  WING was going to Ground Zero in New York City, so they obviously were going to be too busy to interview the individual in question.  Soon after the tip, Revere inerviewed the individual in question and got a good description as to precisely what was happening.  He thanked me for the tip.

Fast forward to December 2005: I recieved a private message on the new Revere Radio forums asking me if I waanted to host my own show.  I replied by asking Revere to give me a phone call to discuss the matter further.  After the phone call I agreed, and soon, I became another host.  It was going to be a test on my part to see if they truly meant it when they said they were "The Worldwide Home of Free Speech."  Not once was I censored.

For that, I was given a choice by Victor Thorn: Leave Revere Radio (and in his mind do the right thing) or face the consequences.  It was not worded in that manner, but it was highly implied.  Reflecting back, I realized that these individuals were not to be associated with.  At first, I was removed from the Revere lineup out of concern, but I had made up my mind: I wanted to stay.

So as can be seen, the type of controversy pertaining to GNN is nothing new to me.  I've been in the middle of these types of conflict before, which is why I am writng this article  now.  In the end, Lisa Guliani left WING as a result of criticism from members of another website: Signs of the Times.  Those forum members did not care for WING's association with radio talk show host Peter Schaenk.  All has been quiet lately, and the latest that I saw on the WING website was a bunch of books for sale.

The fact that these individuals went to the FBI over a show that was done several states to the south of them is odd to say the least, and I slowly began to realize this.  Their final accusation against Michael Ruppert did not build their credibility up (Ruppert was accused of sexual harrassment), which brings us to the next group that was knee deep in controversy.