| Friend,
Last week, dozens of activists and our allies joined me outside NPR headquarters to protest the Trump regime’s extreme attacks on public media. Trump, Musk and FCC Chairman Brendan Carr want journalists to stay timid and think twice about asking hard questions.
When Elon Musk tweets that he wants to defund NPR, here comes censorship czar Brendan Carr with a trumped-up investigation1 into NPR and PBS — telling Congress it should completely cut off funding for public media.
When Donald Trump doesn’t like how 60 Minutes edits an interview, along comes censorship czar Brendan Carr to threaten to take away broadcast licenses.2
Authoritarians like these attack, squeeze and starve the media. They don’t want us to know what they’re doing or what they’re stealing. They don’t want us to be aware of our own government — and they definitely don’t want democracy.
Will you make your very first donation to Free Press Action today? Your gift will help us fight authoritarianism and attacks on free speech. Each year, the United States spends less than $2 per capita to fund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Our problem isn’t that we spend too much on public media: It’s that we spend too much on billionaires.
If our country’s oligarchs paid their fair share, we’d have plenty of money for public media and local journalism. We could put thousands of reporters on the ground, uncovering corruption and painting a true picture of our diverse communities.
It’s no wonder Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg and the rest are so opposed to publicly funded quality journalism. They hate it because they don’t control it. They may be powerful, but they’re on the wrong side of history and the wrong side of public opinion.
We know you value public media and press freedom as much as we do — and study after study shows the vast majority of people in the United States share these priorities. If you’re ready to help Free Press Action stand up to the billionaire class, rush your very first gift today. Your contribution will fuel our essential work in the days, months and years to come.
We must protect and defend public media from these attacks — and we must also keep striving for a public-media system that supports a healthy democracy and its people.
Thank you for your support,
Craig Aaron
Co-CEO
Free Press and Free Press Action
1. “Trump's Censorship Czar Orders NPR and PBS Investigation,” Free Press, Jan. 30, 2025 2. “Free Press Calls on the Trump FCC to Dismiss Meritless News-Distortion Complaint Against CBS,” Free Press, March 7, 2025  |
