On Nov. 3, Condé Nast announced that it was folding Teen Vogue into Vogue, thus laying off most of Teen Vogue’s staff. Most devastatingly, the layoffs primarily affected their Black, brown, trans, and queer workers and the publication’s entire political desk, which had provided readers with rigorous and accurate reporting on systems of oppression, the policies they took shape as, and the progressive and left movements pushing back against them, thanks to a small team of dedicated editors and reporters.

THE RIGHT FUNDS ITS MEDIA. CAN PROGRESSIVE PHILANTHROPY MEET THE MOMENT?

Rigorous, principled, independent journalism is an essential part of movement building.

BY LARA WITT, PRISM AND MAYA SCHENWAR, TRUTHOUT

Teen Vogue was an outlier in the Vogue-sphere and a rarity in mainstream media. The racial and gender diversity of Teen Vogue’s workers reached beyond representational politics; it was also present in how they covered the news. It pushed as close as you could get to movement journalism within the mainstream sphere, right up to the boundary where advertisers might get nervous.  

Teen Vogue is a major loss for many young (and adult!) readers. But this is just the latest in corporate and mainstream media consolidations and closures for the sake of maximizing profits. The 1996 Telecommunications Act ushered in an era of deregulation and paved the way for mergers and acquisitions. Because of those consolidations, the large majority of for-profit news media are now owned by just six conglomerates. What we are witnessing today, however, can and should more accurately be described as media capitulating to President Donald Trump’s racist and authoritarian agenda or at the very least, newsroom leaders finding an opportunity to stop pretending that they ever cared about correcting the systemic wrongs of their industry.

If it seems like it was easy for the Trump administration and Christian white nationalists to erode the diversity gains made within the media, it’s because it was. In the midst of the 2014-2021 uprisings in response to police killings of Black people, abolitionists and grassroots organizers across the country achieved significant decarceration wins at the state and local levels and profoundly impacted the lives of millions. Sensing a tide shift, establishment Democrats worked to co-opt and dilute demands for liberation, aiming for election wins. Calls to defund the police and reinvest funding into social safety nets threatened powerful lobbies and the status quo. The Democratic National Committee responded with tepid calls for limited representation and diversity, impeding real structural change. We have witnessed a neoliberal order make way for the expansion of the carceral state, mass surveillance, billions in subsidies for climate-destroying techno-fascist billionaires, anti-trans moral panic resulting in transphobic policies, a U.S.-backed genocide in Gaza, and the rollback of civil protections, health care systems, and body autonomy, all aided and abetted by corporate media. Representation was never enough.

The Trump administration’s war on diversity, equity, and inclusion and the takeover of cultural institutions and implementation of Project 2025’s agenda have been reflected byNBC eliminating its identity-based desks–NBC Out, NBC BLK, NBC Latino, and NBC Asian America–and laying off the diverse teams who led them. The Washington Post, owned by Jeff Bezos, fired its only Black opinion desk writer, Karen Attiah, while hiring even more right-wing columnists in service of supporting Bezos’s stated ideals of “personal liberties and free markets.” CBS is being helmed by Bari Weiss, an anti-trans, picket-line crossing, self-described “Zionist fanatic, ”at the behest of pro-Israel billionaire Larry Ellison. A billionaire owns and has editorial control over the Los Angeles Times. The New York Times (which recently published a podcast originally titled, “Did Women Ruin the Workplace?”) has been instrumental in legitimizing and fueling anti-trans movements and manufacturing consentfor the genocide in Gaza. Is it any wonder that mainstream media has lost–or, in some cases, never gained–audience trust? At an accelerating pace, the for-profit press is cannibalizing itself, while falling prey to conglomerates seeking endless revenue for something that should be a public good.

All the while, the right is reaping the benefits of a decades-long plan to establish a narrative grip on the U.S. by further sowing distrust in longstanding traditional media institutions and investing in propagandists, conspiracy theorists, and hate-mongering. Anger and bigotry are profitable models if you rewire people’s brains to be driven by fear.

Decades ago, far-right investors and philanthropists committed to a long-term, risk-taking investment in media and narrative infrastructure. Meanwhile, progressive philanthropy has largely ignored progressive and left media, relying on the continued operations of traditional, profit-driven media and failing to acknowledge the role journalism might play in countering the right’s agenda. But mainstream media has never been able and was never financially incentivized to care about poor, working-class, LGBTQIA+, progressive people and communities of color. It has failed our communities by abiding by the myth of objectivity. It has failed us by acting as a mouthpiece for those in power. It has failed us because it was never made for us.

However, progressive philanthropy can take steps to address the crisis we are facing.

Philanthropy must reckon with the fact that we need to invest in movement and community-based journalism, not just in the short-term, but as a long-term project, and with a willingness to trust those of us doing the work. It hasn’t been enough to fund a narrative shift for a year or two and then switch to another strategy. By needing to seek funding month after month and year after year, newsroom leaders must shift precious resources and energy away from creative visioning, supporting our staff, and serving our communities. Rigorous, principled, independent nonprofit and community-based news is an essential part of progressive movement building. Information and accessible, non-paywalled reporting that covers authoritarianism while also uplifting the solutions and multiracial coalitions resisting fascists is a critical part of the work. What many philanthropic organizations call “narrative change,” we call survival, justice, and power.

Movement journalism takes seriously the responsibility of the press to accountably serve the public good. We’re not in “business” to funnel advertising dollars to the pockets of billionaires; we’re here to perform liberatory work that is crucial for any large-scale social transformation.

Movement journalism publications, such as those that are part of the Movement Media Alliance, recognize exposing injustice as a central part of our mission. As Ida B. Wells wrote, “The people must know before they can act.” This is all the more true in the midst of rising fascism, because fascism deploys censorship and information repression as key tactics in furthering its propagandistic goals. Thus, truth is a potent tool for resistance.

Beyond revealing injustice, our journalism is necessary to tell the stories of movements. This type of reporting is part of the tapestry that makes change happen. Press coverage of activism helps put pressure on public officials and other authorities to shift their actions. Even more importantly, it activates the broader public, bringing larger and larger numbers of people into organizing work.

People have to hear about movements in order to join them. And they have to hear about them from sources that cover them accurately, accountably, and knowledgeably, imparting lessons that allow this work to be replicated and to grow.

Organizers also need spaces to share their insights and imaginings for the futures we want to build. Movement journalism provides space for organizers,  especially those most impacted by injustice and oppression, to uplift their own hard-won knowledge and strategies. Our publications make possible the sharing of tactics, tools, and “how-to’s,” along with more visionary work that propels us forward—not only fighting back against present injustices, but also providing frameworks and dreams for what real justice and liberation might look like. That dream-sharing, that collective vision-growing, is vital work too.

The efforts to report and amplify the truth, tell the stories of movements, share activist insights, and make space for visionary imaginings must be resourced. Reporting takes money. Editing takes money. Distribution and amplification of truthful journalism—so that millions of people can actually access, read, view, and hear this work—takes money. Paying staff fairly and providing health care takes money.

Since—unlike our mainstream counterparts—we’re not funded by billionaires, corporate sponsors, or big-business ads, we need social justice-focused philanthropy to play a role in allowing these essential functions to continue and grow. Supporting these efforts is a critical component of supporting resistance to fascism. While we rigorously engage in grassroots fundraising and will always continue to do so, commitments from larger funders are often what make long-term planning possible. Progressive foundations have an opportunity to recognize their unique responsibility here: They hold a special ability to resource media in a sustained way, allowing us to sculpt strategies that help fuel movement futures.

The right knows that funding media is important. That’s why they’re focused on buying up mainstream news organizations and continuing to build and expand distribution for their existing, solidly far-right media bastions. It’s time for progressive and left philanthropy to make a serious, wide-ranging investment in journalism–and stick with it for the long haul.

https://therealnews.com/can-progressive-philanthropy-meet-the-moment