38 years in the media industry, and I never thought the U.S. media would crumble like this

I’ve worked in the media industry for 38 years, first in public and media relations, and more recently as a journalist with The Advocate. In that time, I’ve witnessed profound transformations such as the rise of cable news, the explosion of digital outlets, the collapsing of print, and the reinvention of the definition of what it even means to be “media.”

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I’m also old enough to have been working in the industry when Mikhail Gorbachev instituted glasnost in the old Soviet Union, with the aim of loosening censorship in the media.That was paired with perestroika, which set out to restructure the economic and political system.

It’s hard to encapsulate just how earth-shattering Gorbachev’s policies were. You felt a sense of relief, not only that the Cold War was winding down, but that freedom was spreading. The possibilities seemed endless, and there was a general sense that there was no turning back. That open, democratic societies would finally prevail.

Well, that was short-lived. Vladimir Putin crushed it all.

And now Donald Trump is following Putin’s lead, by doing the opposite of perestroika and glasnost in the United States. It all seems like a bad dream. It doesn’t seem real.

Just seven months into Trump’s second term, he’s transform,When I started out in 1987, nationally, there were three main television networks, and general news entertainment and sports weekly magazines. In most cities, like Pittsburgh, where I began, there were ABC, NBC, and CBS affiliates as well as at least two daily newspapers: the PIttsburgh Post-Gazette in the morning, and The Pittsburgh Press at night.

Looking back, it was all so simple.

Over time, the landscape grew. Magazines proliferated, local TV expanded via cable, and PR professionals like me had to broaden our scope. I went from knowing a few dozen reporters by name in a Rolodex to maintaining spreadsheets that included blogs, digital-first outlets, niche influencers, and social media personalities.

But now the cycle has reversed again, as magazines are shuttering, newspapers are folding, and the traditional media industry is shrinking at a rate we once thought unthinkable.

This would be hard to accept even in normal times, but we’re far from normal at the moment. We’re living through a coordinated assault on journalism, orchestrated by a man who owes his fame to the very industry he’s now determined to destroy.

Donald Trump built his brand through the tabloids, magazines, reality television, and endless press coverage. He even acted as his own PR person. He denies it, but the evidence seems strong.

And yet, like so many strongmen before him, he now seeks to choke the press, extort it, twist it into state propaganda, or bury it entirely. Trump thinks he’s doing the opposite by opening his mouth to assembled media every chance he gets. Even as he excludes outlets like the Associated Press and The Wall Street Journal.

Media bans like the ones the White House has been instituting are the stuff of dictatorship.

Then there is Trump the extortionist . Two behemoth networks, CBS and ABC, have settled lawsuits with Trump, capitulating rather than defending themselves. To begin with, the lawsuits were frivolous. Trump alleged defamation in both cases, not just to protect his ego but to send a chilling message to the rest of the industry: “If you don’t report on me favorably, you will pay.”

The implications of settling are bewildering. CBS is the network of Edward R. Murrow, who fearlessly confronted McCarthyism; of Walter Cronkite, whose criticism of the Vietnam War turned public opinion; and 60 Minutes, which for decades challenged the powerful, including tobacco executives and other corporate titans.

ABC, meanwhile, gave us David Brinkley and Sam Donaldson. Donaldson, in particular, was known for fearlessly confronting presidents, not appeasing them. Barbara Walters became the first woman to anchor the network news, and she initiated new interview standards that are still practiced today.

The legacies of these networks are now tarnished by cowardice and corporate capitulation.

And, it’s always, always, always about the money. CBS’s parent company, Paramount, needed to appease Trump and his Federal Communications Commission in order to get a multibillion-dollar merger approved. And ABC parent Disney wanted to settle on the cheap to avoid mounting legal fees and the possibility of a large payout.

But perhaps the most egregious case right now is what’s being done to Media Matters, a critical watchdog group that has long monitored and exposed the lies, conspiracies, and dangerous rhetoric of right-wing media. It was founded by a onetime conservative journalist turned liberal one, David Brock, in 2004,

Media Matters has been uncovering and identifying misinformation peddlers for two decades. Its work is crucial in tracking the tactics, talking points, and misinformation pipelines of Fox News, Newsmax, OANN, and beyond.

I’ve had the privilege of speaking with Angelo Carusone, Media Matters’ president, several times over the years. Angelo is without question one of the sharpest media minds working today. Our conversations often go long, as two media nerds volley ideas and analysis back and forth.

So it breaks my heart to watch as Media Matters is pushed to the brink by a coordinated legal and financial campaign led by Elon Musk and encouraged by Trump.

The strategy is another example of an autocrat. Sue, smear, and starve them of money. Musk’s lawsuit against Media Matters, filed because it dared to expose that advertisements were appearing next to hate speech on his social platform X.

This isn’t about justice. It’s about attrition. Musk is trying to drain Media Matters financially and silence it legally. Again, it's all about the money. By pounding them through lawsuit after lawsuit, Musk seeks to suffocate the financial life out of Media Matters through overwhelming legal fees.

If he succeeds, it sets a terrifying precedent. Who will be next? And who will be left to hold right-wing media accountable?

The Media Matters versus Musk is a David versus Goliath battle, and the outcome could determine the fate of media watchdogs in this country. If Media Matters i allowed to fold, other media groups, like FAIR, and even mainstream media outlets that uncover falsehoods are surely in the crosshairs.

The pattern is now unmistakable. Trump’s allies are weaponizing the courts. Take the laughable lawsuit Devin Nunes and Truth Social filed against Rachel Maddow for reporting on ties between Trump and Russian intelligence. It was rightly thrown out by a federal judge, but again, the goal wasn’t to win. The goal was to intimidate. To chill. To make journalists think twice before exposing Trump as a liar.

Meanwhile, Trump’s sycophant allies in Congress just took the bottom out of NPR and PBS by gutting the funding of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. These media outlets have provided thoughtful, fact-based reporting and programming for decades.

They reach communities where mainstream commercial outlets don’t exist. PBS, for example, serves kids, working class families, and rural towns. Most of these folks are underprivileged and can’t afford streaming or cable subscriptions, or don’t have access to technology or broadband Wi-Fi.

This is how autocracies work, by chip, chip, chipping away until there are few voices left. Banning the press outright is much too obvious.. Instead, it’s lawsuit by lawsuit, budget cut by budget cut, smear by smear. Autocracies beat media outlets into submission.

They intimidate. They discredit. And they eventually absorb or annihilate media independence. The same thing happened in Hungary and in Turkey, And just as we thought there was no turning back in the era of Gorbachev, I fear that the damage Trump is doing in taking us back and silencing and crushing our media may take decades to rebuild.

But it will never be like it once was. Of that I am convinced. There will, in some form or another, be a new norm.

Trump is not just tearing at the underpinning of democracy. He’s taking huge bites at the very industry that has given me a career and a calling. The media was my first and longest marriage. It’s been my joy and obsession.

I have loved my time in the media, in all its forms, through all its ups and downs. But this moment is different. This is existential. If independent journalism dies, so does accountability. So does truth. So does democracy.

The public needs to understand how serious this is. The assault on the media is not just a side story. It is the story. If we lose the watchdog groups that keep it honest, or networks keep caving, or newswires are forbidden at the White House, how will we know what is a lie and what is the truth in the future?

If Trump can manipulate data like monthly job reports and economic indicators, and provide those numbers to a pliant media willing to report the manipulation, then in the end, we, the public, are being manipulated.

If we lose truth and freedom of the press, we lose our freedom, we lose our soul, and we lose ourselves to untrustworthiness.

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