When Executive Producer Bill Owens resigned from 60 Minutes last month, citing a loss of editorial independence, we felt a chill of recognition. In 2011, one of us (Roman) resigned from Russia’s leading news organization, Gazeta.ru. The outlet had published an interactive project outlining falsified election results that had once again handed victory to Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party. Within hours, the calls started. Pressure from ownership. Questions about loyalty. A quiet but unmistakable order to stop. There was little choice but to leave.
Five years passed, and the situation repeated itself — only this time, the threat felt even more acute and personal. Roman was leading Russia’s largest independent news organization, the RBC media group. It had just published a series of investigations detailing corruption within Putin’s inner circle. Once again, the owner, terrified by calls from the Kremlin, forced Roman and his colleagues out. After that, the odds of working in any major Russian media outlet were close to zero.
Again, there was a choice: stay silent, or find a new avenue to continue doing investigative work that virtually no remaining outlets were able to do. Within a year, Roman launched his own media outlet, Proekt.
We are two people with different paths into this conversation — one a journalist now in exile in the United States, facing a criminal case back home, the other a longtime expert on Russian civil society. We both came to the United States from repressive regimes (Tatyana from Belarus), believing that freedom of speech in America was absolute — an unshakable pillar of democracy. We’ve both witnessed the unraveling of media freedom in Russia, and we see too many parallels unfolding with alarming speed in Trump’s America.
There is a pattern to how authoritarians capture the media. It begins subtly and ends with near-total narrative control. In Russia, this total control allowed Putin to drag his country into a cruel, senseless war against its neighbor.
Oligarchs Buy In and Editorial Independence Erodes
Putin began by courting Russian media moguls, demanding loyalty in exchange for protection and privilege. In the U.S., we now see media-adjacent billionaires — Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, X’s Elon Musk — contributing to Trump’s administration (be it via contributions to Trump’s inauguration fund or a lawsuit settlement that turns into direct contributions to Trump), while their platforms retreat from fact-checking, throttle independent voices, and echo administration lines. Owens’ resignation and the ouster of CBS News President Wendy McMahon just this week come as the controlling shareholder of parent company Paramount, billionaire Shari Redstone, presses to settle a $20 billion lawsuit by Trump that many experts say the company could easily win, amid the Trump administration’s regulatory review of a planned merger by the corporation.
Of course, as the case of Russia indicates, nobody is safe from a dictator’s ire. The late Boris Berezovsky, a powerful oligarch and media owner who initially supported Putin, learned this the hard way. When he refused to cede his shares of television channel ORT to the Kremlin, he was forced into exile for the remainder of his life. American billionaires, take note: even the most powerful allies can quickly become targets in a system that demands total loyalty.
Inside Russia, editorial independence began to erode. This came as a whisper: don’t touch that topic, maybe hold off on that cartoon. In the United States, newsroom exits and public resignations — like Owens’ — signal similar dynamics. When access and advertising are at stake, even mainstream media begin to flinch. For example, Bezos’s Washington Post refused to endorse a presidential candidate in 2024 for the first time in 36 years — a move many interpreted as Bezos hedging his bets in case of a Trump victory. Not long after the inauguration, the Post announced a change in its editorial page policy, leading to the resignations of longtime well-respected staff.
Access Becomes Political Currency
As any other dictator, Putin gradually restricted journalists’ access — not only to the truth, but to himself. It began somewhat innocuously: reporters in the Kremlin press pool were excluded for “inappropriate behavior” or for asking “unauthorized questions.” Over time, the Kremlin turned the press pool into a kind of theater, where journalists were reduced to playing the role of extras. In recent years, reporters have often filed stories about Putin’s events without even attending them.
Trump, too, controls who gets access; one of his first moves was to deny the Associated Press access to the White House press pool. Press briefings shrink. Favorable outlets are rewarded. Critical ones are frozen out. Disreputable sites become elevated simply by having been given this access — and vice versa.
Manufactured Media Diversity
One of the most insidious tactics authoritarians use is manufacturing the illusion of media diversity. The Kremlin perfected this strategy, launching dozens of seemingly independent outlets with the sole purpose of echoing government narratives. These platforms — funded by State contracts and run by loyal oligarchs like Yevgeny Prigozhin — created a false chorus of voices online, giving the appearance of debate while reinforcing State-authored propaganda. Few Russians could name these outlets, but their volume was enough to give the regime cover: “Look,” the Kremlin could say, “we have a free press.”
In the United States, a similar playbook has emerged. Fringe right-wing influencers have been elevated to the presidential press pool. Outlets once considered too unserious to be counted among real journalists are now granted front-row access. Trump and his allies have welcomed these loyalist voices not in spite of their bias, but because of it. From Tucker Carlson’s softball sit-down with Putin to the bizarre “do you own a suit” question to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the authoritarian media model isn’t foreign — it’s homegrown in the United States, and growing louder by the day.
Legal and Physical Threats Intensify
At the same time as all those dynamics are emerging, legal and physical threats are intensifying. Russia is now a top five jailer of journalists. In the United States, physical threats at least are rhetorical — for now. The chilling effects are real. And the courts, long a bulwark, may not remain immune.
The comparison is not perfect, but it is instructive. In Russia, this transformation took years. In the United States, it is happening in months.
And yet, this is not a eulogy. It’s a warning — and a call to action.
Escalating repressions in Russia triggered an explosion of independent journalism. New startups. Innovative crowdfunding models. Local projects. Cross-border collaborations. It is still alive, though in exile and, occasionally, on life support. That experience holds lessons for U.S. journalists today:
- Walking out is not enough. If you leave a compromised newsroom, ask yourself what you will build in its place.
- Go local. Russia’s independent media resurgence happened in part because national outlets collapsed first. Local storytelling became central — and powerful.
- Start with safety. Prepare now: secure funding, protect your data, build networks of legal support. In authoritarian systems, backup plans are not paranoia. They are a necessity.
- To those working inside legacy institutions, ask hard questions. Are your stories being softened? Are critical beats being dropped? Are your sources protected? Don’t wait until your choices are gone.
- To civil society, funders, and the legal community: now is the time to invest in a new generation of independent journalism. Support the infrastructure. Train reporters in digital security. Create legal defense funds. Help build media that can’t be bought, bullied, or ignored.
We are already seeing open threats to journalists, media ownership changes, and deepening alignment between power and profit. But the most dangerous moment is the one in which everyone still tells themselves, “It can’t happen here.”
We’re here to tell you: It can. It already is.
Now is the time for those with platforms — especially those leaving them — to step forward and create something stronger. For journalists, technologists, civil society leaders, and even former government insiders: your knowledge, your voice, and your courage are needed. What you build in this moment could become the foundation of the next democratic revival. Authoritarianism thrives on fear, silence, and the illusion of inevitability. But it is never inevitable.
