We are witnessing the silencing of American media -- Robert Reich

[erronis]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jul/30/trump-silencing-of-american-media

From the Washington Post to CBS, companies are caving to Trump. This is how democracy dies

The latest casualty of Donald Trump’s efforts to silence media criticism is Eduardo Porter, one of the most thoughtful and intelligent critics of his heinous regime.

On Tuesday, Porter wrote his last column for the Washington Post. In a widely circulated email, he explained why he was leaving the Post:

Jeff Bezos and his new head of Opinion are taking the paper down a path I cannot follow, directed toward the relentless promotion of free markets and personal liberties … I have no idea to what extent this is driven by Mr Bezos’ fear of what Donald Trump could do to his various business interests, most of which are more valuable to him than The Post.”

Well, I do have an idea. Bezos stopped the Post from endorsing Kamala Harris. Amazon made a huge contribution to Trump’s inauguration. And he stood in front of Trump at the president’s swearing in.

Why? Because Bezos has founded a bunch of mega-corporations, including Amazon, that depend on Trump’s goodwill and could be in deep trouble if Trump decided to retaliate against Bezos.

. . .

[bucolic_frolic]

1. Imho a lot of segments of society are hunkering down to ride out the storm

[Kid Berwyn]

2. Absolutely.

Reich is correct. The First Amendment is central to US Democracy. That is why the Founders singled out just one business for protection: the press is the only business mentioned by name in the Constitution.

Unfortunately, today it is much easier to muzzle the press. Our press has devolved into a monopoly of news media. That means a handful of companies produce almost all of the content the population and electorate see. Squeeze the life out of the bigguns, King Taco knows, and the little ones will fall in line. The lockstep comes later.