Politics

This was the year when public broadcasting was gutted and hyper-partisans prospered, when the First Amendment was exhaustively praised and opportunistically abandoned. It was the year when media capture came to America.

Before 2025, “media capture” was a term used exclusively overseas, describing the compromise of a free press to curry favor with the regime in power. Sometimes this happened through threats and intimidation, greased by partisan group think. Other times, the cudgel was money: wealthy administration allies would buy independent news organizations and neuter them to fall in line with the state-backed version of facts.

Hungary is often cited as a prime example of media capture — and so it seemed notable that Hungary’s elected autocrat Viktor Orban was repeatedly praised by Donald Trump and Republicans during the 2024 election. It was a clear sign of intent.

One year later, we’ve gotten used to Baghdad Bob-like lies from Trump administration flacks and absurd sycophancy from Cabinet secretaries. We expected spinelessness from the vast majority of congressional Republicans. But the lack of leadership inside news media when faced with an explicitly hostile executive branch has been surprising, largely driven by corporate owners who hid behind a fig leaf of “fiduciary responsibility” to shareholders and genuflected when threatened. They shoveled out millions to Trump for perceived slights (and there is always a perceived slight) that never would have held up in court.