Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defends journalists amid sweeping layoffs
Social media queen Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) used her Twitter platform to defend journalists amid a series of sweeping layoffs across the media industry.
In a Saturday tweet, the freshman congresswoman cautioned that “the biggest threats to journalism right now are tech monopolies & concentration of ownership,” advocating for “high-quality journalism.”
Without a diversity of news outlets, she warned, “our democracy will continue to crumble.”
Gonna keep it 💯: The biggest threats to journalism right now are tech monopolies & concentration of ownership.
Healthy democracy *requires* high-quality journalism.
W/o a wide range of independent outlets & the revenue to sustain them, our democracy will continue to crumble.— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) January 26, 2019
The tweet comes in the wake of recent cutbacks at HuffPost, Yahoo, AOL, BuzzFeed and a handful of Gannett-owned newspapers ― all told, some 1,000 workers lost their jobs.
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Facebook and Google have been widely blamed for monopolizing online advertising, which critics have pointed to as a major handicap to digital news organizations trying to turn a profit to stay afloat.
In a follow-up tweet, Ocasio-Cortez doubled down on her defense of journalists, arguing the profession “will only die if we choose not to fight for it ― and if journalism dies, our democracy will, too.”
The fact of the matter is the current monopoly trend is societally & economically unsustainable.
We can’t simply accept the cliché that “journalism is dying.”
Journalism will only die if we choose not to fight for it - and if journalism dies, our democracy will, too.— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) January 26, 2019
This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
