Sometimes, big decisions come down to very basic and seemingly unimportant details. When we built NOQ Report in 2017, the objective was to build a news organization that focused on News, Opinions, and Quotes… NOQ. What I’ve learned over nearly six years is I’m really bad at branding. In the various interviews I’ve done, I’ve heard the site called at least half-a-dozen names:
- En Oh Queue Report
- Noke Report
- No Q Report
- Knock Report
- No Qreport (I can’t even pronounce it that way but a show host pulled it off)
- Naqua Report (like “aqua”)
It also didn’t matter how prominently I’d put “News, Opinions, Quotes” in the logo, description, or meta data. Everyone would still ask what N.O.Q. stood for. Sometimes they’d ask more than once between shows. One prominent show host told his audience it stood for “News, Opinions, Questions.” Another said that I’m an anti-Qanon (No Q).
The bottom line is this: I named my flagship site very, very poorly. I built other sites to mix it up. On top of that, I have a certain paranoia I maintain regarding Big Tech and diverse sourcing. The way I figured it, I would get canceled often (which I did) and so I needed to have multiple sites in order to maintain my revenue. If one got canceled, I wouldn’t get screwed. After all, this isn’t a hobby. This is how I support my family.
I built America First Report with the intention of eventually replacing NOQ Report like the Dread Pirate Roberts from The Princess Bride. Over time, I would just keep sending people to America First Report instead of NOQ Reports. Today, I’m happy to say that America First Report has matched NOQ in traffic, and therefore it’s time to make the move.
Before getting to “the move,” here’s the scene from The Princess Bride for reference:
So, the move will play out like this. Today, I’m redirected the homepage of NOQ Report to America First Report. Those who go to noqreport.com will end up on americafirstreport.com. I don’t want any links to break so the rest of the site will be redirected to its counterpart on the new site over time. I could do this automatically but there’s always something missed, therefore I’m going to do it manually one article at a time. Those who have shared links to NOQ Report shouldn’t have those links broken.
While America First Report will be my main full-length content hub, I’m also building both Discern Report as a news aggregator and Discern TV as a video site. Both will have all the content I’m posting to America First Report plus a whole lot more.
My work with The Liberty Daily will continue, hopefully indefinitely. I don’t own the site but I love it like my own. I also don’t own my Substack, but it has become a very important audience to me because the engagement is so wonderful. Both are true blessings.
My show is returning after a long hiatus on April 24th. That is super-exciting as well.
Lastly, we are now live with Whole Cows selling freeze-dried, sous vide beef cubes for long-term storage. I partnered with a pair of disabled veterans who make the magic happen.
We all fight the good fight in different ways. Mine is to spread the truth any way I can. Hopefully, this won’t be too confusing. As much as I like to make things easy, I sometimes have to take the longer road to make sure I get to the destination.
Independent Journalism Is Dying
Ever since President Trump’s miraculous victory, we’ve heard an incessant drumbeat about how legacy media is dying. This is true. The people have awakened to the reality that they’re being lied to by the self-proclaimed “Arbiters of Truth” for the sake of political expediency, corporate self-protection, and globalist ambitions.
But even as independent journalism rises to fill the void left by legacy media, there is still a huge challenge. Those at the top of independent media like Joe Rogan, Dan Bongino, and Tucker Carlson are thriving and rightly so. They have earned their audience and the financial rewards that come from it. They’ve taken risks and worked hard to get to where they are.
For “the rest of us,” legacy media and their proxies are making it exceptionally difficult to survive, let alone thrive. They still have a stranglehold over the “fact checkers” who have a dramatic impact on readership and viewership. YouTube, Facebook, and Google still stifle us. The freer speech platforms like Rumble and 𝕏 can only reward so many of their popular content creators. For independent journalists on the outside looking in, our only recourse is to rely on affiliates and sponsors.
But even as it seems nearly impossible to make a living, there are blessings that should not be disregarded. By highlighting strong sponsors who share our America First worldview, we have been able to make lifelong connections and even a bit of revenue to help us along. This is why we enjoy symbiotic relationships with companies like MyPillow, Jase Medical, and Promised Grounds. We help them with our recommendations and they reward us with money when our audience buys from them.
The same can be said about our preparedness sponsor, Prepper All-Naturals. Their long-term storage beef has a 25-year shelf life and is made with one ingredient: All-American Beef.
Even our faith-driven precious metals sponsor helps us tremendously while also helping Americans protect their life’s savings. We are blessed to work with them.
Independent media is the future. In many ways, that future is already here. While the phrase, “the more the merrier,” does not apply to this business because there are still some bad actors in the independent media field, there are many great ones that do not get nearly enough attention. We hope to change that one content creator at a time.
Thank you and God Bless,
JD Rucker
