I write to confirm that The Real News Network (TRNN) will unfortunately no longer be able to produce and co-publish The Chris Hedges Report. All past episodes produced by TRNN are freely available on TRNN and Chris’s Substack, and Chris has full rights to publish all other recorded and as-yet unpublished episodes. For the past two years, TRNN’s non-monetary agreement with Chris entailed producing The Chris Hedges Report for his independent Substack and for TRNN, in exchange for each party, including Chris himself, having full publishing rights to the show. Throughout the duration of that contract, Chris has not been an employee of TRNN, his income from the show has derived and will continue to derive from Substack, and TRNN has no intention or ability to censor or suppress the show, nor to prevent Chris from continuing to produce the show. Chris has assured us and his audience that the show will continue. We are incredibly proud of the work we’ve done together with Chris over the past two years, and the episodes of The Chris Hedges Report we produced together will remain on TRNN’s site, YouTube channel, and on Substack.

As Editor-in-Chief of TRNN, this difficult decision was mine alone, and it was a decision I made after exhausting all options to avoid it. Chris Hedges needs to be free to be Chris Hedges, and he’s got to be free to say what’s in his heart without being restricted by working within a nonprofit newsroom. And I, ultimately, am the Editor-in-Chief of a nonprofit newsroom. I resolutely affirm that this decision had nothing to do with Chris’s excellent and important coverage on vital issues from Israel and the war on Gaza to the trial of Julian Assange—issues that matter deeply to our audience, our entire team, and our network of freelance contributors. We will continue our longstanding commitment to reporting on these and other stories, and we have no ill will whatsoever towards Chris Hedges, and we are so grateful for the time we got to work together. I am heartbroken to lose Chris as a colleague, but we remain comrades in the struggle for truth, justice, and life. I will forever cherish our conversations, our chess games between recordings, our camaraderie, and our friendship, and I can’t wait to see what this titan of journalism does next. 

With love and solidarity, 
Maximillian Alvarez
Editor-in-Chief, TRNN

This post was originally published on The Real News Network.