The Overton Press
Why we're here
Late in the twentieth century Joseph Overton, an American political scientist, presented his theory of acceptable discourse which would later be termed the ‘Overton Window’. This concept posits that within any society there are certain issues and opinions which are considered sensible or even popular to discuss publicly – these are within the Overton Window. Opinions or topics which are considered to be radical fall outside of the metaphorical window, and are thus excluded from conversation and debate. Overton himself initially applied this to policy making, whereby politicians avoid supporting anything which may be unpopular with voters. Therefore even if a policy is a good idea or is necessary nobody seeking public office would risk the votes to give it a voice.
While Overton’s theory is objectively true as applied to the world of politics, it has become clear in the past 2 decades that the Overton Window is applicable to all public thought and debate. The progenitors of discourse within the modern public square have for a long time been mainstream journalists and the large corporate media houses which employ them and set the agenda. Thus, what we are told to think, discuss, believe, and even obsess over is almost always carefully curated by those selling us the so-called news. Indeed news in and of itself has taken on a very different form in comparison to what it is defined to be. Far from just presenting the bland facts, politically and economically motivated news organisations now provide you with commentary, speculation, and most importantly framing on every major story.
Towards the end of 2022 your attention was focused on pit bulls and the danger they present to every man, woman, and child. Then early this year you likely spent a full week worried about exploding gas and fuel tankers which suddenly seemed to be everywhere. Thereafter your attention was diverted to the endless tigers you never knew existed roaming our streets. All things which happened, all largely irrelevant to most, and all distractions from far more important events occurring simultaneously. However it is not just inane nonsense with which legacy media diverts attention. They do this in bold and big terms too.
Perhaps you bought into Cyril Ramaphosa’s “New Dawn”. Who sold this idea to the public? Who provided protection for this disaster of an individual to take unfettered power? And most importantly who ridiculed anyone daring to suggest that this man presented a great danger to the welfare of the country? Every major media house is of course the answer. The same applies to the pandemic which the government, colluding non-profits, and the media lied about and continue to obfuscate over to this day. Thousands of businesses, tens of thousands of jobs and hundreds of thousands of families are now defunct or suffering because morons in the media unquestioningly parroted harmful advice from state actors for no less than 2 years. Worse than this they manipulated public discourse so that anyone questioning the ridiculous notions of locking down, social distancing, fabric masking, and forced injections was automatically maligned, rendered unemployed, or even arrested.
This is how the Overton Window is carefully managed by those with institutional power in order to stifle real debate and allow for gross abuses. In fact many of the things you, your friends, your coworkers, and your family believe to be true are either partially false or are fabrications carefully arranged by our news media and those with an agenda. From nuclear energy to gender ideology to fiat currency and everything in between the opinions of average people have been and are constantly being moulded to comply with the view du jour. Objective journalism is dead. Perhaps it never existed in the first place. What is clear is that what we have now are newsrooms and opinion columns filled with politically motivated activists who call themselves journalists, in an act of stolen valour against all those who came before them and actually reported the news, instead of regurgitating corporate and government propaganda together with sanitised content fit for yellow-bellied advertisers.
If you have had enough of being told what to think, believe, and talk about then The Overton Press is for you. We are not beholden to anyone except you. No foreign NGOs giving funding provided we take a certain position, no advertisers who run at the slightest hint of controversy, and no angel investors telling us what or who is forbidden to be published. Taking this principled position will make it more difficult to succeed, but we believe that there is an appetite for commentary and news which falls outside of the manufactured narrative.
For the next 3 months The Overton Press will remain freely accessible to all on the Substack platform. We have several uncompromised journalists, columnists and writers lined up to bring you some truly fascinating and thought provoking content. Please join us on this journey by subscribing now to think right.