Media Organizations Must Fight Trump's Agenda In His Second Term

Trump’s attacks on press freedom aren’t separate from his attacks on oppressed communities. We must resist them all.

By Maya Schenwar, Negin Owliaei, and Ziggy West Jeffery, Truthout

Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void — we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate. Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.

A clear look at the media landscape shows us why these commitments are necessary. Throughout the first Trump campaign and presidency, corporate newsrooms acted as if they were dinghies buoyed along a naturally occurring wave to the right. Initial rounds of shock at Trump’s demonization of migrants, his hostility toward protesters and the left, and his jingoistic policies eventually gave way to normalization of such stances in corporate news outlets around the country.

protestors in the streets of washington dc

When these outlets did choose to take a stand, it was often around attacks on a free press — which mainstream media depicted as a distinct issue, rather than recognizing its connections with the attacks Trump wielded more broadly against oppressed communities.

Now, we see that even that stance may be changing. The sheen of a confrontational press has dulled. Mainstream news organizations, familiar with the threat to journalism under a Trump presidency, began to capitulate before he even took office.

Take The Washington Post. On Inauguration Day in 2017, Post reporters wrote about Trump waging war on journalists, “accusing news organizations of lying about the size of his inauguration crowd as … huge protests served notice that a vocal and resolute opposition would be a hallmark of his presidency.” The Post famously adopted a new tagline: “Democracy dies in darkness.” Fast forward to 2025, and the newsroom is in turmoil as journalists at the paper — led by a new publisher with a background at the Rupert Murdoch empire and owned by a billionaire who visibly cozies up to Trump — question choices to kill an anti-Trump endorsement and cartoon.