freepress.net

07/31/2025

The ability for a people to govern itself depends on the independence and accessibility of its media. That’s why we need constitutional protections and laws that codify our rights to free speech and a free press. But such legal protections get us only halfway there. The media must also exercise these freedoms and commit to their intended role as defenders of democracy.

What we’ve seen in the first six months of the second Trump administration is a pervasive pattern of consolidated media outlets retreating from this obligation.

In this report — and the Media Capitulation Index that accompanies it — Free Press documents this abdication of responsibility, pointing to the root causes driving many owners to cave to official pressure. We focus on 35 of the largest media and tech companies in the United States, list the various entities that each of them controls, and examine how this ownership influences public discourse and political outcomes across the United States. We then rate the independence of each of these giants, analyzing their commitment to democracy at a time of rising authoritarianism worldwide.

We also track the deep entanglements these companies have with government interests, including their dependence on government contracts and other official favors. We find that the wealthiest media companies are embedded within the power structures of society. In most cases, these ties explain why so many media moguls have bent the knee to the president and his allies.

The entanglements also explain media companies’ head-spinning retreat from prior commitments to promote diversity, equity and inclusion in their hiring and other practices. Many even gave up these commitments prior to Trump signing an executive order banning DEI policies within the federal government. Media commitments to diverse staff and leadership were never strong to begin with; just look at the dearth of women and people of color in media-company boardrooms and C-suites. Yet the companies’ DEI reversals under Trump — often in exchange for federal-agency approval of a proposed merger (see Paramount, T-Mobile and Verizon) — have been particularly jarring.

To document these shortcomings, we’ve separated media corporations into four categories— Broadcasting & Entertainment, Cable & Telecom, Newspapers & Publishing, and Online Platforms & Streaming — and highlight the political pressures inherent to each category.

And finally, Free Press rates the degree (on a scale of one to five chickens ) to which each company has compromised its commitment to independent news and accurate information in exchange for political favors and higher profits — or simply to get the Trump administration off its back. In the rare instance where a company has displayed admirable independence from the political pressures of Washington, it earns a star, a measure of courageous autonomy to which all media should aspire.