Victor Pickard

RonNell Andersen Jones, Sonja West, Christina Koningisor, Helen Norton, Victor Pickard, and image of "The Future of Press Freedom" book.

TOMORROW: Join @randersenjones.bsky.social, @sonjawest.bsky.social, @ckoningisor.bsky.social, Helen Norton and @victorpickard.bsky.social on Zoom from 12-1:30 p.m. to discuss "The Future of Press Freedom."

Register: events.zoom.us/ev/AmsN0eMJS...

@jayrosen.bsky.social on the creeping Orbanization of US media.

When the media covers war, every other topic fades Trump will do anything to distract from the political damage of the Epstein files

@sulliview.bsky.social's analysis brings into focus the media politics of covering war:

I genuinely think these networks should be scrapped for parts

they're bad now, and they're only getting worse from here as the autocrats and oligarchs follow Hungary and Russia's media playbook

The Fine Print is definitely worth subscribing, and really happy he gets this sort of endorsement.

Victor's analysis is spot on.

The real question here is: Why are journalists who work for CNN pushing back so hard against the "media capture" narrative?

Wishful thinking? Or preemptively justifying their own continued employment under Ellison?

Will be interesting to revisit @brianstelter.bsky.social's analysis in the coming months. There are varying degrees of media capture--even if we haven't hit full-blown Orban levels yet, plenty of evidence suggests legitimate cause for concern. I do hope my critique proves to be entirely unfounded.

@karlbode.com's new newsletter is a must-read for any one who wants to keep up on the politics and democratic implications of media and tech policy. He is one of the very best journalists on the beat and he deserves our support!

Will be interesting to revisit @brianstelter.bsky.social's analysis in the coming months. There are varying degrees of media capture--even if we haven't hit full-blown Orban levels yet, plenty of evidence suggests legitimate cause for concern. I do hope my critique proves to be entirely unfounded.

The Trouble Covering Tehran As U.S. and Israeli forces launch deadly strikes on Iran, the inherent challenges of covering the country are exacerbated by recent newsroom cuts, social media distortion, and a White House prone to t...

“In January, WashPost reporter Yeganeh Torbati, who had been covering Iran, appealed to Jeff Bezos on social media, noting she had spent months covering developments inside the country and wanted to continue the work.

“The appeals to Bezos went unheeded.”

elink.mail.status.news/ss/c/u001.zg...

A big part of the authoritarian playbook is war. War takes over the news. War blots out criticism. War divides a nation’s people, subjecting those against it to being called unpatriotic. War grants leaders all sorts of emergency powers. War consumes everything else.

We mustn’t let this war do so.

+1 to @victorpickard.bsky.social ‘s assessment. On air, Stelter noted South Park deal & Jon Stewart examples that undermine Ellisons properties are MAGA. SP is insanely valuable franchise & still Ellisons reportedly got changes made to the deal. Stewart’s extension was only for 1 year up end of 26.

Also some new analysis here: reportearth.substack.com/p/2025-was-a...

On the Media The Peabody Award-winning On the Media podcast is your guide to examining how the media sausage is made. Hosts Brooke Gladstone and Micah Loewinger examine threats to free speech and government transparency, cast a skeptical eye on media coverage of the week’s big stories and unravel hidden political narratives in everything we read, watch and hear.

“Media capture,” is a phrase scholars have been using to describe the phenomena of public interests losing possession of the press to political and corporate players. @victorpickard.bsky.social on why the American system was set up to be snatched away from the start lnk.to/onthemedia/b...

I wrote a book in 2020 on how the collapse of local journalism was seriously harming democratic society and how the need for structural media reform was most urgent: academic.oup.com/book/35132. The problem has only worsened considerably since then.
See @ronanfarrow.bsky.social's thread below.

A new report found 129 journalists were killed in 2025, the deadliest year since the Committee to Protect Journalists began collecting these data in 1992. Israel was responsible for 2/3. I spoke with CPJ's CEO Jodie Ginsberg on the latest @onthemedia.bsky.social: www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm...

On the Media The Peabody Award-winning On the Media podcast is your guide to examining how the media sausage is made. Hosts Brooke Gladstone and Micah Loewinger examine threats to free speech and government transparency, cast a skeptical eye on media coverage of the week’s big stories and unravel hidden political narratives in everything we read, watch and hear.

“I think by now it's time to put to rest this notion of a benevolent billionaire. We should not invest so much power into one individual over our media system and over our democratic society.” - @victorpickard.bsky.social lnk.to/onthemedia/b...

Once again, in actual democracies, people do not need to engage in permanent litigation & political mobilization to retain the basic right to vote, because none of the major political parties make restricting suffrage the central pillar of their policy platform. We also don't have to live like this.

📻 Tune into this week’s show, featuring: @victorpickard.bsky.social, Miriam Berger, @jodieginsberg.bsky.social, & Craig Renaud: lnk.to/onthemedia/b...

Public Media’s Promise Was Never the Problem This is the moment to find a better solution. But the winning coalition must be as broad and as honest as the problem is large.

Excellent piece on the unmet – but still necessary – promises of public media.

We need BBC-level funding (at least) plus it must be radically restructured/democratized from the ground up with a focus on local ownership and control. So not just "public" in name, but actually governed by us all. The norms will follow or coincide with these structural changes.

CNN future in question after Thursday’s stunning Warner Bros. Discovery sale news - Poynter On Thursday night, Netflix said it wasn't pursuing a deal to buy Warner Bros. Discovery anymore, putting Paramount as the front runner for the sale.

"This deal endangers our democracy by giving a family of pliant billionaires even more control of vast swaths of our news coverage, TV stations and movie studios." - @notaaroncraig.bsky.social via @poynterinstitute.bsky.social

but a helpful take bringing together many of the related threads if you want to read something longer and solid:

bsky.app/profile/vict...

My heart goes out to the CNN journalists. But what can be done to support them beyond expressions of moral support? How can journalists at other news outlets and diverse publics provide concrete support? What forms of collective action can we imagine and implement?

The American Media Polycrisis: Cascading Layers of Capture In countries facing democratic backsliding, attention often centers on state capture of the press. Recent U.S. media failures, however, demand a wider lens. Authoritarian encroachment here rests on…

Agree with much of this thread, but I think at base it's still capitalism driving many of these pathologies. Capitalist logics incentivize the drive toward consolidation and monopoly power, even if they produce different kinds of capture. More here in case interested: lpeproject.org/blog/the-ame...

The American Media Polycrisis: Cascading Layers of Capture In countries facing democratic backsliding, attention often centers on state capture of the press. Recent U.S. media failures, however, demand a wider lens. Authoritarian encroachment here rests on…

I don't think this is off base--but combining media oligarchy with the collapse of local journalism, impoverished public media, and the hyper-capitalistic logics of our entire media/information/communication ecosystem--from social media to cable news--it's not looking good for any kind of democracy.

Listen to Victor. Today's news about further ownership and information consolidation by Paramount is case in point that highlights the dramatic decline of informational diversity and democratic voice in the U.S.

Yeah, I write about that in the piece -- I would suggest they are all of the above. Even where they lose money (Elon Musk's X, Bezos's WaPo) they stand to gain tremendous influence that will ultimately gain them money and more power. So, still a good investment overall, democracy be damned.

Agree it's no time to declare defeat and always vitally important to stress that none of this is inevitable and we can and must still create a better media system.

no hate for jamelle. but i wouldn't minimize the moment & focus only on media consolidation. we have that PLUS an assault on public media, insistent state lies/propaganda, attacks on journalism/ts, decimation of local media, & much more that combine to make a genuinely free press harder to sustain.