ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to encourage a greater level of public involvement in the practice of journalism, broadly defined as the production, distribution and consumption of news and news-like information. It explains that there is an “establishment” in the news industry that serves as a controlling elite, and that has a vested interest in maintaining the system of commodity journalism, despite its obvious and many flaws. The site, which describes itself as a “social news” provider and home to “citizen journalism” had been a beacon of democratic journalism and a thorn in the side of the Duerte regime, and CEO Maria Ressa bravely continues to publish despite many death threats and legal challenges. From Trump’s America, across much of Eastern Europe, in Asia, the Pacific region, and parts of Africa, the suppression of information goes hand in hand with anti-democratic political action by state actors and the local, national and transnational elites they protect and serve.
