Salem-News.com Founder Tim King Talks About the Mission of Salem-News.com

Ten years after our initial launch, Salem-News.com has taken on a huge list of subjects, providing coverage where the mainstream fails to exist or even care. We currently have 118 writers in 24 countries.

Tim King during the summer of 2013

(SALEM) - It isn't every day that I cut a video like this but it seems important to explain who we are and what we are about, and why we believe our goals are worth striving for. I won't kid you either, the subjects that we take on, however controversial they may be at first, are the ones to watch.

Dr. Phil Leveque and Bonnie King, 2010.

Those who have been with us for our decade long run, know that we were covering medical marijuana issues with Dr. Phil Leveque, before other media even considered giving the subject fair attention, and now it is fully decriminalized in two states and medically legal in almost half of the country.

We write about Israel and Palestine continually and now the Palestinians may actually get part of their country back. I'm not suggesting that our coverage brought this change about, but our stories reach large numbers of people and when they go viral anything is possible.

I have personally written about the Sri Lanka Tamil Genocide at great, expansive length, showing the photos of rape and torture and murder, and last month Sri Lanka was convicted of Genocide in war crime court.

Our effort to expose the Marine Corps for covering up its knowledge of both deadly base contamination, and the Murder of a colonel who blew the whistle on narcotrafficking that was continuing five years after Iran-Contra, has led to widespread awareness and the book I co-authored with Robert O'Dowd, Betrayal: Toxic Exposure of U.S. Marines, Murder and Government Cover-up.

Tim, Bonnie & Roger Butow, in Oregon, 2010.

Bonnie King and Coral Theill in Maryland, 2012.

Robert O'Dowd, Bonnie and Tim King, Baltimore, 2012.

Robert O'Dowd, myself and other former Marine Corps Air Station El Toro Marines like John Uldrich and Roger Butow, have worked tirelessly to expose the fact that the base is an EPA Superfund site for TCE (Trichloroethylene) contamination that is cancer causing and deadly. In fact Roger lives in Laguna Beach, only a few miles from the base, and has kept up on the environmental pollution of South Orange County for many years.

We have reported so many parts of this story that are undeniable and well backed by scientific analysis and testing, that a long list of people living in the area around the base have thanked us, elected not to buy a home in Irvine, Calif., and even moved away.

Other people write to us to tell us about unexplained cancer cases affecting people living near the old base. We've met with former Marines, former civilian base employees, and we sat down once with a whole group of teachers who once worked at the El Toro school. They talk of cancer deaths affecting both students and staff.

Tim King and Robert "Tosh" Plumlee in Colorado, 2013.

I always remind people that the Marine Corps is a microcosm of the larger military, if the Marines have a problem, so do the other services.

Our writer Coral Theill has walked readers through the painful topic of domestic violence and marital rape. Her courage to push the painful ordeal out of Oregon's backwaters and into the light has brought immense hope to other trauma survivors.

Another subject, one regarding Oregon's corrupt Department of Corrections, is a long range Salem-News.com project; that goal has not been reached yet but we will get there and absolutely no other media agency is pursuing justice for crimes that date back to the 1989 Murder of Oregon Corrections Chief Michael Francke.

Through our writer Tosh Plumlee, Salem-News.com exposed elements of "Fast and Furious" before the story even broke.

Our fight for military Veterans is a constant one. With so many different problems, we focus on everything we can, from Agent Orange and other chemical hazards causing cancer today, to PTSD, outing the VA for their cloud of issues, fighting against unfair VA rulings, lack of awareness, and so much more.

Rwanda's criminal Genocidal government is constantly in our sites. Jennifer Fierberg of Salem-News.com has lined up the witnesses who attest to Paul Kagame being responsible for shooting down the plane that carried the Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana, immediately after a peace treaty was finally signed. That event kicked the Rwandan Genocides into gear.

Tim King and Jennifer Fierberg, Washington DC, 2013

We counter the vilifying of Iran, we expose crimes against Christians in India and Pakistan, we carry news about the poor Baloch people in Pakistan's "Dirty War".

Agron Belica and Tim King in New Jersey, 2013.

We carry news from Afghanistan and other parts of the Middle east reeling under the U.S. war machine like Syria. On that note, we constantly attempt to expose the American support of Salafist Muslims who despise woman's rights, unlike the secular governments of Assad's Syria and Hussein's Iraq.

It is a terrible thing to say, but the American military industrial complex is destroying any chance of peace that might exist and they kill their own regularly under circumstances that stink of guilt and direct involvement, like the Ganjgal ambush and the killing off of Navy SEAL Team 6. It goes on and on.

Salem-News.com stands up for truthful reporting on issues involving American motorcycle riders and clubs, and other tough subjects that the mainstream media doesn't understand the first thing about, except maybe how to follow stereotypes and vilification processes.

Thanks to Agron Belica, we have our own music album, Newsic Revolution - a Newsical Odyssey. These songs rally around the theme of Human Rights and fairness; they are widely consumed through a number of sources.

Tonight, in addition to preparing this video, I added new photo albums on my Facebook page for the Genocides in Sri Lanka and Burma, Israel's illegal war against the Palestinians, and an additional album about the search for Sean Flynn, son of Errol Flynn, who went missing during the invasion of Cambodia more than 40 years ago. (Facebook:  www.facebook.com/TimKing.Reporter)