In February, Common Cause ran an ad in The Washington Post criticizing Elon Musk’s outsized role in the Trump administration. As a “special government employee,” Musk was empowered to illegally fire millions and fundamentally reshape the federal government. Our editorial posed an obvious question: Who is in charge of our country? The weekend before the ad was set to print, the billionaire-owned paper backtracked and pulled it from publication at the last minute, a move that raised concerns about free speech and the ability of institutional media to hold power — and billionaires — to account.
A free press is critical to our democracy, and we must do everything in our power to preserve it. But what happens when billionaires and megarich corporations own and operate most channels of communication and information sharing? Americans are finding out in real time.
Before pulling out of the “Fire Elon Musk” advertisement, Amazon founder and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos axed the paper’s planned endorsement of Kamala Harris. The Los Angeles Times followed suit. More recently, The Washington Post pulled a Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist’s work when it mocked media and tech titans groveling at the feet of President Donald Trump. On the nose, much?
These capitulations by the traditional pillars of our free press have further enabled the new administration to attack our media. When the Associated Press refused to acknowledge the “Gulf of America,” they were blocked from the White House briefing room for weeks. When Amber Ruffin, host of CNN’s “Have I Got News for You” and comedian MC at this year’s White House Correspondents Dinner, indicated she’d poke fun at President Trump, she was fired from the event. Now, not even six months into this new administration, President Trump has signed an executive order to defund PBS and NPR, a direct attack on fact-based and free public media.
Trump’s pressure and intimidation of the media hasn’t stopped. Most recently, Wendy McMahon, president of CBS News, resigned amidst pressure from President Trump, CBS and its parent company, Paramount. McMahon isn’t the only one who was recently threatened for merely alerting the public to the administration’s questionable actions. ABC News is now under fire for its coverage of the luxury jet from Qatar – another instance of Trump targeting media outlets for exposing questionable actions by his administration.
At the community level, local news has been dying over the last decade, leaving behind news deserts nationwide. From traditional, smaller print outlets unable to keep up in the digital age to hedge funds systemically buying out and gutting local papers, communities are being robbed of their access to timely updates and honest reporting on their local governments. Public broadcasting organizations like PBS and NPR have been filling the void for millions of Americans who keep up with the news from their local public broadcasting stations.
Our social media platforms aren’t safe either, with billionaires — often big political donors — owning and controlling the ways our information spreads online. When oligarchs with vested interests in certain agendas control the channels of communication, they have power over what we say, what we see and, by extension, what constitutes truth.
On January 6, Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, announced that it was ending fact-checking on its platforms – a program that was proven to be “effective at reducing belief in falsehoods and reducing how often such content is shared.” Facebook also recently paid Trump $25 million to settle an old lawsuit stemming from its decision to ban Trump’s accounts after the January 6 insurrection.
A few weeks later, Google said it wouldn’t integrate fact-checking into its search engine or YouTube. As these new rules went into effect, the leaders of these very tech companies had front row seats to President Trump’s inauguration. Major tech companies, including their CEOs, each donated $1 million to the Trump inauguration fund.
How can public interest prevail on platforms and in outlets that are privately owned? Much like the hedge funds that have gutted local news, special interests and unelected CEOs want to dismantle pillars of our democracy and sell its parts to the highest bidder at the expense of the people.
Since 2010, Americans have seen big money exponentially poison our politics with the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling that opened the floodgates to unlimited political spending by corporations and special interests. It’s clear that money doesn’t just buy a seat at the table anymore — it buys every seat, the table and the entire White House, too.
The 2024 elections were a testament to this, standing as the costliest election in American history, with nearly $16 billion spent nationwide and an additional $5 billion coming from outside sources. The top five mega-donors each donated more than $100 million to influence the elections.
It’s true that democracy dies in darkness. It also withers behind a paywall, is manipulated by social media algorithms and hollowed out by covert corporate consolidation. The shadow cast by self-interested billionaires grows larger by the day, muzzling any truth that conflicts with their bottom line. But that isn’t the end of the story.
Organizations like Common Cause and the Southern Poverty Law Center are committed to cutting a different path by shining a light through the darkness. From helping everyday people make their voices heard and offering local solutions that empower small-dollar donors, to removing the financial barriers stopping regular people from running for office, increasing government transparency and preserving the local media ecosystem, we can and will continue to hold power to account.
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