We Need an Alternative Media Infrastructure

This morning, the first thing I did was watch the Jimmy Kimmel Live! episode that was filmed last night after Kimmel's return from a suspension. The reason I watched the show this morning rather than last night when it was broadcast is because I live in a television market served by an ABC affiliate owned by Sinclair Broadcasting. Sinclair, along with Nexstar, chose not to air the program. This seems to have been a terrible decision for those affiliates, or at least for Sinclair. In the D.C. area, viewership would have been through the roof. I suspect that almost nobody watched whatever was shown in Kimmel's place. The YouTube video that I watched this morning already has over 10 million views. But I am not here to give Sinclair business advice. If the company's strategy is to discourage anyone from watching their broadcasts, who am I to complain? Instead, what I'd rather talk about is a future where the likes of Sinclair and Nexstar are not important.

Most mornings when I sit down to write this blog, I have decided earlier what topic I will address. I often have most of the research complete and maybe even some of the post written. Not today, however. This morning, I had no idea about what subject to write. I had several options, but I ended up choosing one that just came to me. Therefore, this might turn out to be a bit of a disappointing post. I haven't really done any research or given the topic all that much thought. I am basically going to write off the top of my head, with all the shortcomings that is likely to produce. What I am thinking about, and choosing to put into words, is how we can create an alternative media environment that is less subject to government and corporate control. Obviously, this train of thought was triggered by Kimmel's experience of having Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr and cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump attempt to violate Kimmel's 1st Amendment rights and get him removed from the air.

In the United States, the airwaves are regulated by the government. This is because the broadcast spectrum is limited and considered a public resource. However, cable television and the Internet are much more free from government interference. Currently, media in the U.S. is being consolidated under the control of right-wing billionaires and major corporations. Fox has long been owned by Rupert Murdoch and his family. The Paramount Skydance Corporation, formed last month via a merger of Paramount and Skydance and now led by David Ellison (son of Larry Ellison of Oracle fame), owns CBS. ABC is owned by the Walt Disney Company. NBC is owned by NBCUniversal, which is a subsidiary of Comcast, which, in turn, is controlled by Ralph J. Roberts, another billionaire. The same situation exists for most of the major cable networks, who are often owned by the same groups as the broadcast networks.

From the perspective of anyone interested in free speech, especially from the left, this type of ownership presents two clear threats to free expression. The first is ownership that is ideologically driven, such as Ellison and Murdoch. The Ellison family has long been right-wing supporters of Trump and the MAGA movement. It is no surprise that just prior to Ellison gaining control of CBS, Steven Colbert's show was canceled. Colbert has been a frequent Trump critic. The second issue is that large corporations, regardless of the political ideology of their leadership, have lots of exposure to government pressure. For instance, Skydance would not have been able to merge with Paramount in the first place without government approval. To get that approval, Paramount was willing to make compromises affecting CBS, including reaching a settlement with Trump over a "60 Minutes" broadcast that resulted in CBS forking over $16 million. When Carr and Trump took aim at Kimmel, the fact that the Nexstar, who owns a large number of ABC affiliates, was awaiting approval from Carr to merge with TEGNA, meant that Carr had considerable leverage over Nexstar and, therefore, on Disney as well.

In the newspaper world, the Washington Post is owned by Jeff Bezos, a billionaire who should have the freedom to act however he pleases but for some reason has chosen to be a Trump suck-up. More than likely, Bezos is more interested in government funding for his rockets than he is in press freedom. A similar situation exists in Los Angeles where multi-billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong owns the Los Angeles Times. Soon-Shiong, like Bezos, has for no apparent reason cast his lot with Trump. Most newspapers are simply struggling to survive and greedily being suctioned up by private equity investors. The New York Times stands almost alone as a major independent newspaper. The Times was recently the target of a Trump lawsuit that was so poorly written that a judge threw it out before hearing a single argument.

A similar phenomenon is happening on the Internet. Facebook and Instagram are owned by Mark Zuckerberg. A one-time liberal, Zuckerberg has moved steadily to the right and now routinely fawns over Trump. Zuckerberg has taken a number of steps to appease Trump and make Facebook much more favorable to the MAGA crowd. Twitter, now X, of course, was purchased by Elon Musk and essentially turned into a Nazi hangout. Trump himself owns Truth Social. TikTok, which had been a thorn in the side of both major parties when it came to the war in Gaza, is reportedly being sold to a group of Silicon Valley investors, including Larry Ellison. YouTube, owned by Google, has generally been open to the full political spectrum, but, as is the case with most large corporations, has lots of exposure to threats from a government such as Trump's that would not hesitate to use such leverage.

So you see where this is going. Almost all forms of media are falling under the control of those who willingly align with the right-wing or are susceptible to government coercion. A time when left-wing views are almost completely suppressed is not hard to envision. To avoid this reality, we must create an alternative media infrastructure.

This is where things get tricky. That's primarily because I don't have the answer as to how to do this. There are a few examples of independent, if not exactly left-leaning, media that we can use as examples. One is right here in Washington in the form of "The 51st". This is a young news outlet that has its roots in the DCist, which was purchased and then later shut down by WAMU. Over 98% of its funding is from individual donors. There are no billionaires calling the shots. Another example to emulate is the Baltimore Banner. Launched in 2022, the online newspaper is a non-profit set up by Stewart W. Bainum Jr., a businessman and former Democratic politician. The Banner has been doing outstanding work and recently expanded to Montgomery County. I understand that there are similar independent newspapers throughout the country.

There are also a huge number of liberal YouTube channels. However, most of these focus on opinion or analysis. What is needed is a larger number of channels that concentrate on news reporting. The sort of journalism being conducted by the 51st and the Banner needs to move to video. The current situation in which many liberals get their news primarily through comedians is not sustainable. In this regard, thought should be given to moving away from YouTube. YouTube, as part of Google, is, as I said above, potentially susceptible to government coercion. A model that I think would be great is one modeled on podcasts. Instead of a central facility where all the videos exist, videos could be produced by anyone and hosted anywhere. Multiple directories that surface and help curate the videos could compete with one another. This is an achievable project that would actually be fun to work on.

The point that I am trying to make is that the left is rapidly entering a hostile media environment. We must learn to think like a rebel army. We should create an alternative information infrastructure that avoids single points of failure or exposure to corporate or government control. We need to collect, report, and distribute news and information in ways in which it cannot be easily suppressed. We need to bring back the spirit of pirate radio. How we do this, I am not entirely sure. But talking about it might be the first step.