Media, Misinformation
& Press Freedom

Pass the PRESS Act — a federal shield law is non-negotiable. 49 states have some protection for reporter-source confidentiality; there is no federal protection. The PRESS Act passed the House unanimously in 2024 but was blocked in the Senate after Trump opposition. Biden-era DOJ source protections were rescinded by AG Bondi in April 2025. This platform mandates federal shield law passage. The Act must include investigative journalism protection against Espionage Act abuse and the Assange precedent that threatens to criminalize the publication of classified information every major investigative outlet regularly publishes in the public interest.

• Enact a federal anti-SLAPP statute. Strategic lawsuits against public participation are weaponized by the powerful to silence journalists through litigation costs — even suits with zero legal merit achieve their purpose by draining resources. There is no federal anti-SLAPP statute. Federal protection is required, modeled on the strongest state-level protections. The PRESS Act and federal anti-SLAPP statute together create a comprehensive journalist protection framework.
• Stop political intimidation of broadcasters. The FCC Chair cannot weaponize the licensing process against disfavored outlets. Political threats to broadcast licenses, exclusion of press outlets from official access, and extraction of settlements through regulatory retaliation are incompatible with press freedom. The First Amendment prohibition on government abridgment of press freedom applies to regulatory threats — not just direct censorship.

Enact a News Media Bargaining Code. Google and Meta capture approximately 60% of US digital ad revenue. The Brattle Group estimates Google owes $10–12 billion and Meta $1.9 billion annually in fair payment for news content that drives traffic on their platforms. Require negotiated revenue sharing — the Australian model — with binding arbitration if negotiations fail. This is not a subsidy; it is payment for value received. Australia enacted this in 2021; Google and Meta reached agreements with news organizations within weeks.

• Emergency federal grants for local journalism in news deserts. Federal grants fund nonprofit and community journalism in all 213 counties with no local news outlet. Priority for public interest coverage of courts, school boards, city councils, and local government accountability. Journalist density fell from 40 to 8.2 per 100,000 — the democratic deficit this creates is not recoverable without direct intervention.
• AI content obligations for platforms. Platforms using AI to summarize or distribute journalism without driving traffic to source sites must compensate news organizations. AI scraping of journalism content without compensation compounds the ad revenue collapse that has already devastated local newsrooms.

25% household reach maximum — a hard cap, not a guideline. No single entity may own broadcast outlets reaching more than 25% of US television households. Nexstar currently reaches approximately 54.5% — more than double the cap. Entities exceeding the cap have 3 years to divest. This is not subject to FCC waiver. No administration may grant exceptions without Congressional authorization. Ownership caps are enacted by statute — removed from FCC discretion.

• Restore cross-ownership restrictions eliminated in 2021. No single entity may own a TV station, radio station, and newspaper in the same market. The restriction eliminated following Prometheus must be restored through legislation. Media pluralism in local markets is a democratic requirement, not a regulatory preference.
• Mandatory 120-day public interest review for hedge fund newspaper acquisitions. Alden Global Capital and similar funds acquired 200+ newspapers and deliberately asset-stripped them. Approval is not automatic — demonstrated public interest harm is grounds for denial. The Alden model of vulture capitalism in local journalism ends here.

Restore and modernize equal time requirements for broadcast licensees. The Fairness Doctrine — requiring broadcasters using public airwaves to present contrasting viewpoints on controversial public issues — was eliminated in 1987. If a broadcaster gives airtime to one political party or perspective on a matter of public importance, they must offer equivalent time to opposing parties or perspectives. This is not government content control — it is the condition of using public airwaves and public infrastructure. The public owns the airwaves. Broadcasters are licensed to use them.

The editorial firewall is legally enforceable, not aspirational. Corporate owners of multiple media outlets are prohibited from mandating editorial content, "must-run" segments, or political messaging to local newsrooms. Local editorial decisions are made by local editors and journalists — not corporate headquarters. Violation constitutes grounds for FCC broadcast license review. Whistleblower protections are required for journalists reporting corporate interference.

The standard mirrors NYT v. Sullivan — knowing and purposeful falsehood only. Liability attaches to knowing and purposeful presentation of false statements of fact as news — mirroring the New York Times v. Sullivan actual malice standard. This is not about opinions, editorial perspective, honest mistakes, or interpretive differences. It targets only deliberate, knowing falsehoods presented as factual news reporting. The First Amendment is fully preserved. The Fox-Dominion settlement demonstrates that the actual malice standard applies to knowing broadcast falsehoods — the Truth in Broadcasting Act creates a public remedy where only a private remedy existed.

JUDICIAL enforcement — the government does not decide what is true, courts do. All proceedings are adversarial in federal court with full constitutional due process. No administrative censorship. No prior restraint. No content review boards. The FCC may initiate civil enforcement proceedings — as the SEC enforces securities fraud — but courts adjudicate. Any person or organization with standing may also bring claims directly.

ALL fine revenue flows to the Public Media & Education Trust Fund. The Trust Fund finances: public broadcasting expansion; local journalism grants in news deserts; and K-12 media literacy education. The outlets that deliberately mislead the public directly fund the infrastructure that creates an informed public. The liars fund the truth-tellers.

Mandatory algorithmic transparency and independent auditing. Require platforms to disclose how recommendation algorithms work — what signals drive recommendations, what is amplified, what is suppressed. Modeled on the EU Digital Services Act, which requires Very Large Online Platforms to publish annual risk assessments. Independent researchers and regulators can audit recommendation systems. A 2025 PNAS audit of Twitter's algorithm confirmed amplification of hostile, divisive content. Facebook's own suppressed internal research found 64% of extremist group joins came from its recommendation algorithm.

• Section 230 reform — not repeal. Repealing Section 230 would destroy the open internet. Instead: condition immunity on transparency requirements; create a separate liability track for algorithmic amplification of already-illegal content; strengthen platforms' right to moderate without losing immunity. Platforms are not liable for what users say — but ARE accountable for how algorithms amplify and distribute it. Non-compliance penalty: 6% of annual global revenue (EU DSA model).
• Full political advertising transparency. Full disclosure of all political ad buyers, real-time public databases, restrictions on micro-targeting political advertising — the Honest Ads Act framework. PAC-funded fake local news sites (Metric Media operates 1,300+ sites generating AI-produced propaganda disguised as community journalism) must be labeled as political operations. Undisclosed political money in media is undisclosed political money in elections. (Cross-reference Issue 24: Campaign Finance.)

The funding gap is a national embarrassment. The United States spends $1.98 per person per year on public media through CPB — compared to Norway ($136), Germany (~$95), the UK (~$95), and Canada (~$33). PBS reaches 130 million households annually. 53% of voters trust public media versus 35% for media generally. The system delivers extraordinary value on negligible investment. We are building a media system on a rounding error.

Target: $5–10 billion per year — a realistic BBC-equivalent trajectory. A realistic progressive target — up from the current $535 million — sufficient to create a robust national news service with investigative capacity, fund local reporters in every news desert, sustain rural and emergency broadcasting infrastructure, and maintain complete editorial independence. Matching UK per-capita funding (~$95) for ~250M US adults would require approximately $23.8 billion per year; $5–10 billion is the credible 5-year target.

• The arm's-length principle is non-negotiable. Public media must be institutionally independent from the government that funds it. No administration may defund public media as political retaliation — precisely what the Trump administration attempted with a $1.07 billion CPB rescission. Multi-year protected appropriations, independent governance, no political appointee control of editorial decisions.

Full beneficial ownership disclosure — Americans have a right to know who owns their media. Mandatory, comprehensive beneficial ownership disclosure for all broadcast license holders, newspaper owners, and digital news platforms above a circulation/audience threshold. Real-time public database of media ownership — who owns what, funded by whom. Dark money in "news" must be labeled as what it is: political donors funding "news" outlets must be disclosed.

Hard ownership caps enforced through both FCC and FTC/DOJ. The Nexstar-TEGNA merger waiver — granted without public vote, allowing a single company to reach 54.5% of US television households — is precisely the captured-regulator behavior the Universal Mandatory Duty to Act prohibits. Ownership enforcement is not optional for the FCC. Neither agency may waive the 25% cap without Congressional authorization.

Foreign information operations are documented, systematic, and ongoing. The Senate Intelligence Committee documented systematic Russian interference in the 2016 and 2020 elections through social media manipulation, reaching 32 million Americans with measurable attitude effects. Chinese Spamouflage/Dragonbridge operations now use AI-generated content. Iranian IRGC-linked operations target US elections through bot networks. FARA enforcement against foreign state media is strengthened; platforms must detect and label foreign state-sponsored content.

• Mandatory C2PA AI content labeling. All AI-generated content distributed through broadcast, digital platforms, or social media must be labeled as AI-generated using the C2PA content provenance standard. AI-generated fake news sites grew 10x in one year. The economics are devastating: producing false content costs almost nothing; fact-checking it costs orders of magnitude more. Platform detection systems must implement AI content detection — no exceptions for speed or convenience.
• Election deepfake criminal penalties and human editorial oversight. Creating and distributing synthetic media designed to manipulate elections carries criminal penalties — structured with mens rea requirements to pass constitutional scrutiny. News organizations may use AI tools, but all published content must have human editorial oversight and fact-checking. AI cannot replace journalists without editors.

K-12 media literacy required nationally, tied to Title I/IV funding. A University of Illinois study found 45.7% of Americans perform at coin-flip level when distinguishing fact from opinion. Only 25 states have any media literacy requirements. Federal education funding is conditioned on state adoption of K-12 media literacy standards. Curriculum covers: identifying reliable sources; distinguishing news, opinion, and propaganda; recognizing algorithmic manipulation; evaluating evidence; and understanding media ownership and business models.

Finland's model is the gold standard. Finland — ranked #1 in press freedom for 8 consecutive years — embeds media literacy across all subjects from kindergarten, requires it of every teacher regardless of discipline, and scores 74/100 on the Open Society Institute's Media Literacy Index. The US adopts the Finnish multiliteracy model: critical information evaluation woven through every discipline, not siloed into a single class.

• Funding mechanism: the Public Media & Education Trust Fund. Truth-in-broadcasting fine revenue flows directly into the Trust Fund, which finances public broadcasting, local journalism grants, AND K-12 media literacy education. Public media literacy campaigns through CPB and public libraries reach adults — addressing the 45.7% of all Americans who cannot reliably distinguish fact from opinion.