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As Trump Threatens News Outlets, Experts More Concerned About Capitulation of Corporate Owners
"The commercial news media, which helped elevate Trump to power, have proven repeatedly that they are ill-equipped to withstand such pressures," warned one scholar.
Aug 25, 2025
As US President Donald Trump late on Sunday lashed out against the American media and threatened to pull broadcasting licenses from networks for their alleged "biased" coverage of him, media experts said the danger to the news media lies partially in corporate outlets' potential capitulation to the Trump administration.
In a post on his Truth Social platform, the president railed against NBC and ABC, which he called "two of the absolute worst and most biased networks anywhere in the world."
He then said the networks should "lose their licenses for their unfair coverage of Republicans and/or conservatives, but at a minimum, they should pay up BIG for having the privilege of using the most valuable airwaves anywhere at anytime!!!"
The president concluded his angry rant by declaring that "crooked 'journalism' should not be rewarded, it should be terminated!!!"
Trump did not point to any specifics regarding his claim that the networks' coverage of him is unfair, but asserted that they "give [him] 97% bad stories."
This is not the first time that Trump has called on the Federal Communications Commission to strip broadcasters' licenses for producing news he doesn't like, although so far no network has had its license revoked by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
Even so, some experts were alarmed at Trump's latest attacks, which they feared could lead to more capitulation from major media corporations similar to the $16 million settlement that CBS parent company Paramount agreed to earlier this summer, which stemmed from what experts called a meritless lawsuits over a "60 Minutes" interview with 2024 Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris.
Victor Pickard, professor of media policy and political economy at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication, described the president's angry rants as "yet more worrying signs that Trump knows no limits in exerting dictatorial power over our news media."
"The commercial news media, which helped elevate Trump to power, have proven repeatedly that they are ill-equipped to withstand such pressures since they typically privilege their profit motives over democratic needs," he said. "Some individual journalists have shown much courage despite Trump's attacks, but the corporate media institutions themselves too often capitulate."
Tim Karr, senior director of strategy and communications at Free Press, echoed Pickard's point about the media being responsible for the president's political rise, and he singled out NBC's decision to air Trump's reality TV show, "The Apprentice," which he said gave Americans the false impression that he was a "successful and decisive businessman."
He also expressed concerns that broadcasters would offer the president more concessions in an attempt to avoid retaliation.
"What should be more worrying to anyone who appreciates a free press is the degrees to which these massive media conglomerates are capitulating before the president," he said. "If we've learned anything about the media from the past eight months, it's that massive media companies are far too beholden to the political elite to speak truth to power."
He then accused the major networks of cowering before Trump despite having the First Amendment clearly on their side.
"NBC and ABC are protected under the First Amendment from the sort of government meddling proposed here by Trump—and enacted by his obsequious FCC chairman, Brendan Carr," he said. "The problem is that big media conglomerates like these two would rather cave to the president than stand up for their constitutional rights."
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Press Freedom Coalition to FCC: Don't Ditch Checks on Corporate Media Consolidation
The 16 groups urge the agency "to uphold its obligation to promote competition, localism, and diversity in the U.S. media."
Aug 05, 2025
A coalition of 16 civil liberties, press freedom, and labor groups this week urged U.S. President Donald Trump's administration to abandon any plans to loosen media ownership restrictions and warned against opening the floodgates to further corporate consolidation.
Public comments on the National Television Multiple Ownership Rule were due to the Federal Communications Commission by Monday—which is when the coalition wrote to the FCC about the 39% national audience reach cap for U.S. broadcast media conglomerates, and how more mergers could negatively impact "the independence of the nation's press and the vitality of its local journalism."
"In our experience, the past 30 years of media consolidation have not fostered a better environment for local news and information. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 radically changed the radio and television broadcasting marketplace, causing rapid consolidation of radio station ownership," the coalition detailed. "Since the 1996 act, lawmakers and regulators have further relaxed television ownership limits, spurring further waves of station consolidation, the full harms of which are being felt by local newsrooms and the communities they serve."
The coalition highlighted how this consolidation has spread "across the entire news media ecosystem, including newspapers, online news outlets, and even online platforms," and led to "newsroom layoffs and closures, and the related spread of 'news deserts' across the country."
"Over a similar period, the economic model for news production has been undercut by technology platforms owned by the likes of Alphabet, Amazon, and Meta, which have offered an advertising model for better targeting readers, listeners, and viewers, and attracted much of the advertising revenue that once funded local journalism," the coalition noted.
While "lobbyists working for large news media companies argue that further consolidation is the economic answer, giving them the size necessary to compete with Big Tech," the letter argues, "in fact, the opposite appears to be true."
We object."Handing even more control of the public airwaves to a handful of capitulating broadcast conglomerates undermines press freedom." - S. Derek TurnerOur statement: https://www.freepress.net/news/free-press-slams-trump-fccs-broadcast-ownership-proceeding-wildly-dangerous-democracy
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— Free Press (@freepress.bsky.social) August 5, 2025 at 12:58 PM
The letter points out that a recent analysis from Free Press—one of the groups that signed the letter—found a "pervasive pattern of editorial compromise and capitulation" at 35 of the largest media and tech companies in the United States, "as owners of massive media conglomerates seek to curry favor with political leadership."
That analysis—released last week alongside a Media Capitulation Index—makes clear that "the interests of wealthy media owners have become so inextricably entangled with government officials that they've limited their news operations' ability to act as checks against abuses of political power," according to the coalition.
In addition to warning about further consolidation and urging the FCC "to uphold its obligation to promote competition, localism, and diversity in the U.S. media," the coalition argued that the agency actually "lacks the authority to change the national audience reach cap," citing congressional action in 2004.
Along with Free Press co-CEO Craig Aaron, the letter is signed by leaders at Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians - Communications Workers of America, National Coalition Against Censorship, Local Independent Online News Publishers, Media Freedom Foundation, NewsGuild-CWA, Open Markets Institute, Park Center for Independent Media, Project Censored, Reporters Without Borders USA, Society of Professional Journalists, Tully Center for Free Speech, Whistleblower and Source Protection Program at ExposeFacts, and Writers Guild of America East and West.
Free Press also filed its own comments. In a related Tuesday statement, senior economic and policy adviser S. Derek Turner, who co-authored the filing, accused FCC Chair Brendan Carr of "placing a for-sale sign on the public airwaves and inviting media companies to monopolize the local news markets as long as they agree to display political fealty to Donald Trump and the MAGA movement."
"The price broadcast companies have to pay for consolidating further is bending the knee, and the line starts outside of the FCC chairman's office," said Turner. "Trump's autocratic demands seemingly have no bounds, and Carr apparently has no qualms about satisfying them. Carr's grossly partisan and deeply hypocritical water-carrying for Trump has already stained the agency, making it clear that this FCC is no longer independent, impartial, or fair."
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Why Is So Much of Corporate Media Caving to Trump?
A new ranking of the 35 largest media conglomerates finds a systemic failure to protect democracy against authoritarianism.
Jul 31, 2025
The rules of authoritarianism are pretty simple: Do as the leader says... or else.
This lopsided power equation runs counter to the checks and balances that are baked into the DNA of any healthy democracy. The early framers of American democracy understood this, which is why they codified the basic rights to free expression and an independent press as checks against power.
Free Press this week released the inaugural Media Capitulation Index to examine how this information ecosystem is fairing nearly 250 years later. This sweeping investigation analyzes and rates the independence of America’s 35 largest media companies, including the many conglomerates that have recently caved to pressure from an authoritarian and corrupt Trump administration.
I led the investigation, produced the performance-based ratings of these companies, and authored the report, A More Perfect Media: Saving America’s Fourth Estate from Billionaires, Broligarchy, and Trump, which accompanies the index.
We need to examine the systemic failures that have led us to this point and understand how such accumulation of power and wealth makes it next to impossible for these media giants to fulfill the social compact embodied in the notion of the Fourth Estate.
The findings are sobering. After digging into the many failures of America’s hyper-commercialized media system, we present a series of recommendations to help dig the United States out of the authoritarian quicksand into which we're sinking, and build toward a more independent, democratic, diverse, and free press.
This work is crucial at a time when some of the most dominant news media companies empires including Disney (which owns ABC), Paramount (CBS) and Warner Bros. Discovery (CNN) are capitulating and compromising in the face of this administration’s political extortion and thuggery. In addition, The New York Times is becoming increasingly “vulnerable” to pressure from the White House. In many ways it's a vulnerability of its own making. As we report, the newspaper's “ill-advised attempt at both-sides objectivity [has the Times] routinely normalizing the most extreme elements of Trumpism.”
The index also investigates the questionable and often lucrative government entanglements of billionaire media owners like Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Elon Musk.
In evaluating the 35 companies, Free Press found that media owners capitulated to the current White House in four principal ways:
- Through payments to U.S. President Donald Trump in the form of legal settlements, production contracts, campaign contributions, and other donations;
- By rolling back prior commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion practices in hiring and community outreach;
- Through editorial manipulation and censorship: pressuring their newsrooms to soften criticism of the administration, firing staff, and even pulling content that might anger the president; and
- By attempting to curry favor with the president during inaugural ceremonies, private dinners at Mar-a-Lago, and meetings in the White House.
Fulfilling the Social Compact
This small cartel of billionaire- and equity-fund-controlled conglomerates determines much of what Americans read, see, and hear. Their coverage and amplification too often sets the agenda around nation-defining political issues. Through a history of mergers and acquisitions, these companies have consolidated their control over public discourse.
Our founders sought to protect the U.S. press from government meddling so that reporters and publishers could act as reliable checks against tyranny and other political corruption. But it’s up to the media to exercise these freedoms. Many modern-day media owners, instead, have put their pursuit of power and profits over First Amendment principles.
I can’t imagine that the drafters of the Constitution foresaw a time when so much control over information would fall into the hands of so few. We need to examine the systemic failures that have led us to this point and understand how such accumulation of power and wealth makes it next to impossible for these media giants to fulfill the social compact embodied in the notion of the Fourth Estate.
I spoke with former New York Times public editor Margaret Sullivan, who later wrote the Free Press project was a “thorough new examination of how well—or poorly—the American press is doing that core mission. And why it’s mostly failing.”
Each conglomerate in the Media Capitulation Index is ranked on a scale from “independent” to “propaganda.” The report analyzes the root causes driving commercial media’s inability to defend democracy at a time of spreading domestic and international authoritarianism.
Who Owns the Media Owners?
As I was writing, researching, and creating these materials, many people asked me: “Who owns the media?” The Media Capitulation Index helps answer that question, but it also raises an even more essential (and disturbing) one: “Who owns the media owners?”
The report that accompanies the index reveals the systemic problems behind the media’s failure to meet this moment. But it concludes on a more hopeful note, outlining steps people can take to make “a more perfect media” for everyone. These include fully funding public media and independent, local-accountability journalism; restoring and strengthening media-ownership limits; and emboldening the Federal Communication Commission’s and Federal Trade Commission’s role in stopping media mergers that harm the public interest.
We will continue to update the index, capturing both instances of media capitulation and examples where media stand up to this extortionate regime. It’s hoped that this structural critique of our current media system will help instill in more media outlets the courage needed to challenge a bullying and power-hungry president.
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