Dear MoveOn member,
We should be worried: The news media is in danger under Donald Trump. Look at these recent headlines:
“MSNBC cancels Joy Reid show as part of overhaul under new administration,” reported The Hill on Sunday.1
“Washington Post Cancels Ad From Groups Calling for Trump to Fire Musk,” The New York Times wrote last week.2
Reid, a powerful and outspoken critic of Trump, began hosting shows at MSNBC in 2014. Her show, “The ReidOut,” has been on air since 2020. Her firing was abrupt.
Trump praised MSNBC’s move to cancel Reid’s show, saying horrific things about her and calling her “one of the least talented people in television,” who should have been “canned” long ago.3
The Washington Post‘s decision to reject the anti-Musk ad comes on the heels of Jeff Bezos, the paper’s owner, sitting in the front row at Trump’s inauguration and after he demanded that the paper, at the 11th hour, pull its presidential endorsement of Kamala Harris.4,5
And then earlier today the White House announced they will hand-select the reporters who can ask the president questions at events.6 In free countries, leaders don’t get to choose which reporters cover them.
At the same time, Elon Musk has made X into a pro-Trump echo chamber, Meta gutted its moderation and fact-checking on its platforms, and the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress, led by Marjorie Taylor Greene, have launched multiple attacks on public media—NPR and PBS.7,8
Kendall, we urgently need to both protect public media and use MoveOn’s large megaphone to get the truth to millions of Americans about Trump and Musk’s reign of destruction and what we can all do about it, together.
MoveOn can reach tens of millions of people through email, text messages, and on social media. And in this critical moment, we’re significantly modernizing and strengthening our digital infrastructure. But it’s a huge undertaking, and we’re doing it while also firing on all cylinders to blunt Trump and Musk’s attacks on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, public schools, and more.
Can you chip in $5 a month to help MoveOn strengthen our technology infrastructure to be able to reach more people and at lightning speed so we can get the truth out and engage millions of people in the fight for our communities, freedoms, and safety?
No, I’m sorry, I can’t make a monthly donation.
The latest news about MSNBC and The Washington Post follows Disney, which owns ABC News, paying Trump $15 million to settle a bogus lawsuit, Meta and X writing Trump big checks to settle similar lawsuits, and Paramount Global, owner of CBS News, considering settling a defamation lawsuit with Trump that they almost certainly would win in court.9 And Trump personally made the decision to bar the Associated Press, one of the most well-respected news organizations in the world, from the White House and Air Force One after the news outlet declined to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America.”10
The consolidation of the corporate media and tech billionaires behind Trump and the MAGA movement (remember, in addition to Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, the CEOs of Google and TikTok also flanked Trump at his inauguration) poses a major threat to the future of our country—which is why MoveOn is doing everything we can to fight back.11
That work includes MoveOn’s undertaking a massive effort to move our digital tools—including the system we use to send you emails like this—to platforms that are aligned with the progressive movement. All while we are also running a full-court press to protect our communities by stopping Trump’s chaos, as he further enriches these same billionaires.
The amount of work involved cannot be overstated, and as a grassroots organization, we are able to do it only with your support. Please, if you are able, will you donate $5 a month to ensure that MoveOn has the resources to continue all of our work?
No, I’m sorry, I can’t make a monthly donation.
MoveOn is migrating much of our digital infrastructure to a platform called ActionNetwork, which was created by a nonprofit organization with deep ties to the labor movement. We have also made the decision to no longer actively post content on X and are working diligently to rebuild our social media presence on Bluesky, an open-source platform with much stronger community controls.
In addition, we’re investing even more heavily in tech security to help prevent hackers from attempting to infiltrate MoveOn or shut us down through coordinated online attacks.
And we’re organizing MoveOn’s millions of members to hold the corporate media accountable, stop Trump and Republicans in Congress from shutting down NPR and PBS, and fight against abuses by big tech companies and misinformation.
Essentially, we need to walk and chew gum at the same time.
We have to migrate our data piece by piece while also training volunteers to organize events in their communities.
We have to rebuild our digital infrastructure while also flooding Congress with calls.
We have to retrain our staff to use entirely new systems while ensuring that MoveOn’s millions of members are kept informed and given concrete ways to take action against the Trump administration.
It’s a lot of work, but we are confident that we have made the right decision and that MoveOn will be stronger, more secure, and better able to lead in the fights to come because of it.
We have just over two months left to complete our tech migration process, and we need your help to make sure we cross the finish line. Can you chip in $5 a month to help us through this most challenging of times?
No, I’m sorry, I can’t make a monthly donation.
Thanks for all you do.
–Kelly, Nakia, Isbah, Alexis, and the rest of the team
Sources:
1. “MSNBC cancels Joy Reid show as part of overhaul under new administration,” The Hill, February 23, 2025
https://thehill.com/homenews/media/5160187-msnbc-cancels-joy-reid-show-in-major-shake-up/
2. “Washington Post Cancels Ad From Groups Calling for Trump to Fire Musk,” The New York Times, February 17, 2025
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/17/business/washington-post-ad-trump-musk.html
3. “Donald Trump Celebrates Joy Reid Cancellation—’Least Talented People,'” Newsweek, February 24, 2025
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-joy-reid-canceled-msnbc-2035101
4. “Trump, a populist president, is flanked by tech billionaires at his inauguration,” AP News, January 20, 2025
https://apnews.com/article/trump-inauguration-tech-billionaires-zuckerberg-musk-wealth-0896bfc3f50d941d62cebc3074267ecd
5. “Washington Post Employees Plead for a Summit With Jeff Bezos,” The New York Times, January 15, 2025
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/15/business/media/washington-post-employees-jeff-bezos-letter.html
6.”White House Moves to Pick the Pool Reporters Who Cover Trump,” The New York Times, February 25, 2025
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/25/business/media/trump-white-house-press.html
7. “Zuckerberg Makes Meta Worse to Please Trump,” Algorithm Watch, January 8, 2025
https://algorithmwatch.org/en/zuckerberg-makes-meta-worse/
8. “Marjorie Taylor Greene demands hearings with leaders of PBS and NPR to address their ‘biased’ coverage,” The Independent, February 3, 2025
https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/marjorie-taylor-green-pbs-npr-biased-content-b2691492.html
9. “Media Giants Settling With Donald Trump Are Setting a ‘Dangerous’ Precedent,” Vanity Fair, February 7, 2025
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/media-donald-trump-paramount-disney-meta
10. “Trump personally decided to limit Associated Press’ access to White House,” Politico, February 24, 2025
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/24/trump-white-house-associated-press-lawsuit-00205723
Want to support MoveOn’s work? Donald Trump and his MAGA allies expect us to give up. But we will not give them what they want. We will never stop working to defend our fundamental freedoms and protect our democracy. MoveOn has been leading the movement against right-wing extremism for 26 years, and we promise you that we will still be here every step of the way forward.
Will you donate to power MoveOn’s work to protect our freedoms and democracy under Trump’s administration?
No, I’m sorry, I can’t make a monthly donation.
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