Kayla Dones | Investigative Field Op Director. Founder, Protagonist Network. We handle the field, you keep the story.
The Edge of Chaos
- Tweets 15,886
- Following 3,854
- Followers 8,253
- Likes 11,015
Pinned Tweet
Just got photos back from the Lions Publishing Summit, and I'm still processing everything I learned.
Getting to see what local journalists and media entrepreneurs are building across the country was genuinely fascinating — and it left me with a few takeaways I can't stop thinking about:
Healthy businesses = healthy journalism. The biggest theme of the summit wasn't editorial, it was operational. Without a sustainable business model underneath it, journalism has nowhere to stand. No real foundation with no sustainable future in sight.
Trends observed include Hyperlocal having a moment. Grassroots media organizations are leaning hard into hyperlocal coverage, and it's filling real gaps in communities that have been starved for local news.
But it made me wonder — as we all zoom in, who's still covering the national story?
It is my belief Media Services are the new frontier, it is a whole new way to look at the market value with the tradecraft. I didn't meet another media services company built on a journalism foundation like mine but thats no excuse not to build. That felt like both validation and a wake-up call.
Local journalism isn't dying — it's evolving. The question is whether the industry evolves fast enough to keep it alive.
Would love to hear from others who were there — what was your biggest takeaway? And for those building in this space: are you seeing the same service-model shift?
#LocalJournalism #MediaInnovation #LionsPublishingSummit #JournalismBusiness
#MediaServices
2
227
What do you think they can do with our cellphones?
SICK: PSYCHOPATH & WAR CRIMINAL NETANYAHU CAN'T HELP BUT GLOAT OVER HIS VICIOUS CRIMES IN FRONT OF U.N.
Make no mistake about it: Israel's exploding pagers were a terrorist attack - which killed and maimed thousands of Lebanese, including innocent men, women, and healthcare workers...
2
396
Wow, Candace just put it so eloquently that yes, indeed, we (Americans) are the next Palestine. And the world will watch it happen and no one will come to our rescue. So it’s up to us to get active … in REAL life. The battle is for our minds and our backyards. Period.
292
This is the new social contagion. And it is a fight for all of humanity, our most epic battle and the righteous will be victorious.
UN General Assembly WALKS OUT as Netanyahu speaks.
2026 (81st session): majority of UN delegations left in protest as Netanyahu began to speak.
2025 (80th session): Most UN delegations left in protest as Netanyahu began to speak.
2024 (79th session): UN delegations left in protest as Netanyahu began to speak.
1
255
These are the people making decisions that impact our lives.
Sen. Jim Justice throws a huge birthday party for his dog on Capitol Hill 🎂
🎥: @hicharliecotton
1
1
4
401
Mood.
We don’t care anymore.
We don’t care about your reports, your strongly worded letters, or your press releases- and we’re no longer stupid enough to not know that these empty gestures are being dropped in the weeks leading up to an election.
When the headlines include indictments and accountability we’ll begin listening again.
4
318
The Protagonist retweeted
🚨 HOLY SMOKES! 🤯
The New York Times reports that a Democratic-aligned group, Project Bullhorn, paid more than 100 creators through SideShift to flood social media with “affordability” content ahead of the 2026 midterms.
$25–$30 PER VIDEO.
Many didn’t disclose they were being paid. Some weren’t even from the states they claimed to represent. One Utah resident posed as a Texan, while a creator in England claimed to be from Texas.
And remember how every time you opened TikTok, it felt like “affordability” videos had completely taken over your feed?
IT WASN’T YOUR IMAGINATION.
Democrats literally paid creators to manufacture what was supposed to look like organic grassroots outrage.
They wanted you to believe regular Americans were naturally flooding social media with outrage over affordability when there was an organized, paid campaign behind the content.
And they wonder why people don’t trust the left. THIS is exactly why. 👇
385
5,374
8,345
155,893
Same coin, different sides, don't let them divide.
‼️They Need You Mad At The Left So You Stop Asking Who Killed Charlie 👀
This article by my friend Kayla perfectly describes why the fedsloppers are desperately trying to connect Unfuck America and people like myself and Candace owens by proxy to ActBlue so they can dump Charlie Kirk’s assassination back on “the left” heading into the midterms.
That is not an an accident. That is a pre-election psyop. They want the country grieving, angry, and pointed in one direction. They want you so busy blaming Democrats that you stop looking at Turning Point, the right, and to stop asking questions about Epstein or who killed Charlie Kirk.
They are desperate to use Charlie's death as a turnout machine. Kayla laid out how they weaponize “investigations” to move voters. This is that. Same theater. Same timing. Same goal.
Read it.
Follow my friend Kayla @protagonistnet
⚠️As you guys know this is now day 16 of no monetization. They’ve targeted the income of everyone digging into the Charlie case. Now more than ever we rely on the support of our community to keep the Charlie Kirk investigation alive. If you value our work and want to support us, you can click the link in the post to donate to our fundraiser.
spot.fund/195l322sc
Thank you all for the encouragement and support.
286
My latest piece breaks down what a nationwide citizen journalist field investigation actually looks like — and how investigations can be weaponized to fit one side's narrative. Full breakdown below. 👇
kaylamoon.substack.com/p/act…
4
14
6,737
The Protagonist retweeted
@ReporterMcCabe isn’t it weird that we only care about foreign money, impacting our elections when it has to do with Democrats?
Latest Article:
ActBlue Under the Microscope, WinRed Nowhere in Sight.
kaylamoon.substack.com/p/act…
1
163
The biggest scandal here is that Republicans waited three months to push this investigation to the mainstream, and that they refused to investigate their own read the full story here:
kaylamoon.substack.com/p/act…
ActBlue’s entire legal and compliance teams left following the 2024 election.
All current and former employees called to testify have pleaded the Fifth before Congress.
This major Democrat fundraising platform threatens the integrity of our elections.
182
Latest Article:
ActBlue Under the Microscope, WinRed Nowhere in Sight.
kaylamoon.substack.com/p/act…
1
616
The Protagonist retweeted
I have been posting these images for 3 years and waiting to see when people will wake up.
One day, I hope most look back at this and realize Tribalism was deliberately amplified to divide, label terrorist and conquer.
Both political sides do it & most fall for it.
The evidence is mounting. All of the people who took credit at the podium upon the arrest of Brian Cole Jr. are complicit, either through negligence or malfeasance. Mr. Cole is not the J5/J6 pipe bomber, and the identity of the actual perpetrator is being obscured. Bookmark it.
6
53
209
6,411
The Protagonist retweeted
This started as a grassroots investigation with concern, citizens all across America, don’t let us down. We want Action not just hearings.
Yes! We really had citizen Journalist talking to their neighbors who were Top donors in their area. Reviewing bank statements so we could compare what we were finding on the fec.gov website. @TinoBambino3 got a major story out of Colorado with the Top ActBlue donor in his state. @JudiciaryGOP should give recognition to all the boots on the ground CJs who made this happen. To all the citizens who got active in their own backyards, you made a difference.
1
118
The Protagonist retweeted
Yes! We really had citizen Journalist talking to their neighbors who were Top donors in their area. Reviewing bank statements so we could compare what we were finding on the fec.gov website. @TinoBambino3 got a major story out of Colorado with the Top ActBlue donor in his state. @JudiciaryGOP should give recognition to all the boots on the ground CJs who made this happen. To all the citizens who got active in their own backyards, you made a difference.
2
1
285
This ActBlue hearing on the @JudiciaryGOP floor is something all of us who worked on this should be proud of. Now it’s time we hold these elected officials accountable and make sure they do something about it.
2
3
17
3,663
Yes! We really had citizen Journalist talking to their neighbors who were Top donors in their area. Reviewing bank statements so we could compare what we were finding on the fec.gov website. @TinoBambino3 got a major story out of Colorado with the Top ActBlue donor in his state. @JudiciaryGOP should give recognition to all the boots on the ground CJs who made this happen. To all the citizens who got active in their own backyards, you made a difference.
2
1
285