The Wall Street Journal. Time Magazine. The Chicago Tribune. The Economist. These publications are just a fraction of the numerous newspapers, magazines, and publications that have fallen into the grasp of wealthy billionaire owners, some of whom have no prior experience in the field at all.
In recent years, the acquisition of media into the hands of the billionaire class has become increasingly apparent. Whether it’s Twitter getting sold to the immensely wealthy Elon Musk, or The LA Times being bought out by billionaire investor Patrick Soon-Shiong, there has been a clear trend that media is centralizing.
As The Atlantic reported, after the Chicago Tribune was acquired by a hedge fund called Alder Global Capital, a quarter of its newsroom was cut. Ironically enough, the Atlantic was also bought by the billionaire Laurene Powell Jobs in 2017, Steve Jobs’ widow.
And sure, many of these acquisitions are necessary. In 2013, when the Boston Globe was struggling to make the transition over to print, Red Sox owners John and Linda Henry purchased The Boston Glove for $70 million. Upon receiving ownership of the publication, the Henrys invested in digital publication, and made the Globe be the first publication to have more digital subscribers than print.
In a time when newspapers have been largely in decline in the United State and media has been struggling to stay alive amidst falling readership and the digital era, these billionaire investments can be the lifeline for major publications.
But these acquisitions are coming at the cost of free and independent journalism, which comes from a fundamental difference in the goal of the media. Journalism is not a traditional business – its goal is public service, not profit. Its goal is to hold the wealthy and powerful accountable. These are ideals that contradict the goals of a businessman: profit and power.
Perhaps the most concerning consequence of the rising influence of billionaires in media has been their overreaching influence over journalistic independence.
Perhaps the best example of this is Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon and a man whose net worth is over 215 billion dollars, and his tenure as owner of the Washington Post.
Bezos recently blocked a Washington Post editorial endorsing Kamala Harris, a choice that led to the resignation of three editorial board members. Similarly, the LA Times blocked an editorial to endorse Harris, a move that also caused editorial board members to resign. It’s clear that these billionaire owners are not here to defend journalism. They are here to, instead, influence our day-to-day lives.
If “democracy dies in darkness,” as the Washington Post’s slogan goes, then it most certainly suffers in silence too. Wealthy interests have decided to drown the free press in a pool of its own blood, using the perilous financial state of journalism to strongarm publications at their own whims.
Combined with the decline of local journalism, the stakes are even higher as the influence of national publications has expanded.
According to Columbia Journalism Review, there has been a 57% decrease in the number of newspaper newsroom employees in the past two decades. Additionally, according to research conducted by Northwestern University Medill School, a fifth of the US population now lives in a news desert, a place without a native local newspaper.
These local newspapers aren’t just dying because of shifting trends. In a report by The Atlantic, certain conglomerates and hedge funds have been actively gutting newsrooms. One of these funds, Alden Global Capital, has made a business off of buying local newspapers, shrinking the newsroom and offering aggressive buyouts, before eventually letting the newspaper be squandered off or collapse entirely. Money speaks louder than a thousand words.
The picture here has become grim. National outlets are being controlled and manipulated by billionaire owners. At the same time, local newspapers are being smothered and left for dead by hostile hedge funds looking for a quick profit. And journalists, as a result, are stuck between a rock and a hard place.
But we don’t have to be silent.
We—as consumers of the media and as concerned citizens—have power. Not just in our voice, but in our wallets.
For example, readers responded swiftly to the blocking of the endorsement editorials: The Washington Post saw the cancellation of 200,000 subscriptions. The LA Times saw thousands of its readers cancel their subscriptions, with over a thousand explicitly citing “editorial concerns” as their main reason.
Readers should instead support local and independent journalism, which have struggled to compete with larger publications.
Independent journalism depends on its readers. The Guardian, an independent newspaper, gets a third of its revenue from reader donations. Mission Local, which has long covered news in San Francisco, gets 75% of its revenue from reader donations. The student publications here at Paly, too, rely on the generosity of parents, the community, and their readership. We encourage readers to donate, sponsor, and subscribe to your local newspaper.
In an age where our national outlets are increasingly at risk of being controlled by the powerful and the wealthy, a class whose interests lie in filling their own pockets, a defense of local journalism is paramount.
The free flow of information and popular participation in the democratic process can only exist with a free press—a press not controlled for the wealthy, but instead for the millions.