Billionaires, Mergers, and the Free Press: Ray Suarez on Truth and Democracy
The Jim Wallis Podcast · District Productive
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Show Notes
Veteran journalist and former public television host Ray Suarez joins Jim Wallis to unpack how decades of deregulation and consolidation brought us to a media landscape dominated by a handful of billionaires and hedge funds.
Suarez traces the shift from the days when “most adults in America saw at least part of a network newscast every day” and “we knew the same things” to a fractured ecosystem where the Ellison family, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and other moguls increasingly shape what the public knows.
He warns that public broadcasting is being “weaponized” through zeroed‑out funding and that “the truth isn’t free… reporters need to be paid,” urging more activist media consumers and new subscription‑style models to sustain independent journalism.
Wallis connects this to a shared vocation of truth‑telling in journalism and the church, insisting that for people of faith, defending a free and independent press is a core democracy and discipleship issue.
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