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The Big Picture –
By Glynn Wilson –
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Not since December, 1776, have the people of America faced a more serious crisis of democracy than the one we face today on the eve of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. Are we facing the end of democracy forever? Or is this Trump authoritarian dictatorship just a temporary setback?
Considering the crucial importance of the press in creating this country as an independent democratic republic almost 250 years ago, and helping to maintain it for the past 249 years with its role enshrined in the First Amendment to the Constitution, is it not worth asking this question today? What is the state of the American press as we face this crisis?
As astute readers may recall, back in 2023 we published the original essay on “The American Crisis” by Thomas Paine to warn of the coming crisis in the U.S. election of 2024. Students of history can now read it here since it is in the public domain.
You will recognize this quote:
“THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly…”
The American Crisis: By Thomas Paine – 1776
I have been operating in a direct, bright line of this tradition since going independent online in 2005. But a few years ago, another American reporter and editor, Margaret Sullivan, joined in this struggle after leaving public editor positions at The Washington Post and The New York Times.
She now publishes a newsletter on Substack called “American Crisis,” which I have been receiving by email since it started. She has published my comments before. Although like many from the big time traditional media business, she considers herself somehow more worthy and important than I am, which quite frankly is debatable.
I also reported for and worked for The New York Times and other big time news outlets back in the heyday of American newspapers and the early days of digital news, and still publish a syndicated column that runs in other news outlets, including the online and print edition of The Progressive Populist out of Austin, Texas and Iowa. I also taught journalism at the university level for a decade, during that time conducting research into the role of the press in influencing public opinion, and became an academic expert on media effects on public opinion.
As a matter of full transparency, I published my Masters Thesis in this vein of research online back in 1997 after presenting an updated version at the Midwest Association of Public Opinion Research annual conference in Chicago, November 21-23, 1997: Public Attitudes and Press Coverage of the Environment, 1968-1996.
So this morning after I woke up and got the coffee going and checked my emails, there was a new column from Sullivan under the headline:
American Crisis Exclusive: The ‘Media Capitulation Index’ with the subhead: A sweeping report — with rankings — on the decline of independence in our corporatized media.
She wrote about what she called a media “capitulation-and-kowtowing spree,” and highlighted the CBS News case of paying $16 million to settle a suit brought by Donald Trump over a (routinely edited) “60 Minutes” interview of Kamala Harris.
Although she fails to mention that CBS also fired late night comic Stephen Colbert, or the satirical shellacking Trump is taking from the cartoon show “South Park,” also on Paramount, which I wrote about here.
Roll Over Ed Murrow: Make Way for Fox News Two on CBS – South Park Shows Trump in Bed With Satan
Sullivan mentions another Trump suit against ABC News, where he raked in $15 million, and “garnered a note of regret.”
Many legal experts think ABC could have won the case had they tried, she notes. She also cites the case of Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos ordering an editorial endorsing Harris to be spiked last fall, and the appearance of Bezos “front and center at Trump’s inauguration after contributing $1 million to the festivities.” Even Fox News drastically cut back on its coverage of the Jeffrey Epstein story after Trump charged it was a non-story and a hoax, she points out.
We wrote about the Epstein story here:
Epstein! Oh Epstein! QMAGA Must Know: Trump And Best Friend Lead the Pedophile Ring
“It’s more than a trend,” Sullivan says. “It’s a growing crisis of the press abdicating its responsibility to hold powerful people and institutions accountable.”
In response, she says, Free Press, a 20-year-old media-advocacy nonprofit (definitely not to be confused with Bari Weiss’s similarly named company founded in 2021) did extensive research over many months about all of this.
“The result is a thorough new examination of how well – or poorly – the American press is doing that core mission. And why it’s mostly failing,” she says.
So you don’t have to just believe me anymore, although I have been writing about this longer than anyone.
The Free Press report is called “A More Perfect Media,” and she interviewed the report’s author, Tim Karr, a former reporter for large news organizations including the Associated Press and Time, senior director of strategy and communications.
The study, with the subtitle “Saving America’s Fourth Estate from Billionaires, Broligarchy and Trump,” not only lays out the problem, she says, “but offers a way forward.”
One element included is something called a “Media Capitulation Index,” which you can see here.
Direct link to the report: A More Perfect Union
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Thirty five of the largest and most influential media organizations in the United States get a rating for their relative independence or lack thereof. The ratings, which come with explanations, range from a star (signaling independence) up to four chickens (signaling propaganda).
“As you’ll see,” Sullivan writes, “there are enough chickens in these ratings to start a good-sized poultry farm.”
Not to mention all the information system pollution, clogging our public airwaves like chicken shit clogs many waterways in agricultural, rural areas.
Bloomberg News earned a rare star. The New York Times got one chicken, which means “vulnerable.” Disney (which owns ABC News) got three chickens, which indicates “capitulating,” as did Paramount Global, which owns CBS News. Fox Corp., which includes Fox News, earned the worst-possible rating of four chickens.
So did Meta, corporate owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
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She asked Karr why the Times, which prides itself on its journalistic independence, does not get the star rating.
“There is a tendency to ‘both-sides’ reporting about the Trump administration,” Karr said of the Times, giving “equal weight to the forces of democracy and the forces of authoritarianism.”
One sees this particularly in headlines and, he said, in feature reporting that glorifies and normalizes anti-democratic public officials with glowing attention, for example, to their fashion or lifestyle choices. That, he says, amounts to “soft-pedaling fascism.”
That is true, but of course the Times IS the establishment’s national newspaper of record, and does some of what it does to preserve “access” to sources, including sources inside this or any administration.
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The rankings are focused on commercial media, which is why the Associated Press, NPR and PBS are not included, although on a daily basis, you could see and hear the same both-sideism and an almost chicken-shit sucking up to Trump in AP stories and on NPR.
Karr emphasizes that the problem of media capitulation didn’t start with Donald Trump, “though his second term has caused it to grow exponentially.”
The tendency has been worsening since the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, she says, which removed many of the restrictions on media ownership. The result has been a “massive realignment.”
“Huge, diverse corporations own news companies, and independent journalism all too often takes a back seat to corporate profits, mergers and other forms of consolidation,” she says. “Meanwhile, public media has been defunded, local journalism lacks local ownership, and partisan propaganda has found an influential home on radio and cable news.”
If “you’re disgusted, disheartened and want to know what you can do,” she says, “Karr wants us to remain optimistic (or at least not to lose hope).”
“We’re at a moment of emergency and media crisis,” he acknowledged.
“But policy continues to be made, particularly at the FCC (although Trump appointees now control the FCC), and it’s important that the public be informed and that momentum grows to address these problems. The report offers action steps. (See its Section IV on principles, practices and policy.)
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“It may take a long time to make progress, and it may not happen at all while Trump holds so much power. But change can’t happen at all without public engagement,” Sullivan writes.
“These corporations exist because of public policy,” Karr emphasized, and reforming the system must happen the same way. “There is a genuine popular movement to create a more democratic media system. People should get engaged in this debate.”
Free Press takes no money from business, government or political parties, and neither do we. It (and we) rely on individual donors.
American Crisis now has almost 48,000 subscribers, Sullivan says in the end, but she does not reveal how many of those are paying subscribers. We are still getting more than a million hits a month and taking donations instead of selling subscriptions, with no paywall and no popup ads. And you don’t have to sign up for Substack to read it.
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As I told a friend and fellow journalist on a trip to Shenandoah on Sunday, this might be a good time to get into the independent news business – for someone with the resources and courage to do it. I have been doing it as a pioneer on the web for 20 years, and would work a lot harder at it if we had the resources to keep doing it. But last year, I faced a serious case of burnout, and plan to semi-retire to California soon.
If some entity wanted to provide far more resources and help us ramp up more coverage of this stuff, and to even produce a podcast, we might work harder at it. Meanwhile you can easily contribute to fund more coverage here.
If you support truth in reporting with no paywall, and fearless writing with no popup ads or sponsored content, consider making a contribution today with GoFundMe or Patreon or PayPal.
