They wouldn't be a source on, for example, what is happening in Ukraine at the moment (which is the kind of thing I consider "news" rather than commentary).
Alexander Mercouris has posted blow-by-blow updates on every battle and political move of the war once or twice a day for months. He called, for example, the Russian capture of Mariupol a month before it happened, while the entire time corporate media was running non-stop propaganda about how well the war was going for Ukraine.
Sometimes I think people understand the mainstream narrative only through the lens of the contrarians, which is sometimes accurate and sometimes not.
This claim conflates the overall war with Mariupol. I didn't see any serious media that claimed that Mariupol would end other than it did. Everyone called it the same way, that I saw (though I don't read opinion pieces).
Many opinion writers create strawpersons; they say 'the corporate media did X' and then contrast themselves with it. When that happens look at some mainstream media (which is not one thing, but many, many independent publications) yourself and corroborate it. It's almost always false, IME.
If the war was going so-so for Ukraine, half the country would be under Russian control.
IMO as long as Ukraine doesn't lost any substantive amount of territory over the summer and stalemates the Donbas/etc, they are winning the war and Russia will falter in the winter.
IMO strategically Ukraine is winning the war, they are getting better weapons, gaining experience, getting supplies, Putin is weakening, the World will adapt to the economic disruption, and Russian troop morale will continue to falter.
The West obviously loves Ukraine draining Putin of all his might. The risk of nuclear war is still ominous.
The entire corporate media was reporting the likely impending fall of Mariupol for long before it happened, while still covering how much Russia had been forced to pivot in their war aims, was taking enormous casualties (in general and in senior officers) by historical standards, and all kinds of other negative indicators.
You can win battles while losing the war.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Greenwald
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Hedges
You can look up the others if you like.
People like Jimmy Dore don't claim to be investigative journalists, fwiw. Then again, most "news" is fed to us by pretty actors, talking heads, and not active investigative journalists (who should not be judged on prime-time attractiveness).
"What's happening in Ukraine" that most people are worried about is actually the geopolitical machinations that might lead to WWIII. The situation is so messed up that Chomsky and Kissinger are both publicly advising everyone to seek peace! When did you ever think you'd see those two on the same side of anything?
Kissinger was a hawkish warmonger in the 60s and 70s.
But since 1982 he has been a lobbyist and his lobbying firm, Kissinger Associates, is currently owned by the U.S.-Russia Business Council.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kissinger_Associates
As for Chomsky, he will compulsively oppose whatever the West does. Is he still opposed to the Western interventions against genocidal Serbian forces in the 90s?
Unfortunately they pretend they are. Half of them make a living being contrarians so for the past few months they have been spewing pro-Russian lies and propaganda.