Who gives a cluck? Free Press’ ‘Media Capitulation Index’ names and shames outlets for kowtowing to Trump

We decided to rate the degrees of capitulation using chickens. We have a five-chicken scale, one chicken being vulnerable and five chickens being propaganda. We applied that rating system as a visual way for people to quickly understand where a company stands in relation to the Trump White House. There’s also an additional symbol, a star, for a company that, in our analysis, is completely independent.”

Timothy Karr, senior director of strategy and communications, Free Press

“We really wanted to grab attention — the chicken heads seemed to have done that,” said Timothy Karr, senior director of strategy and communications at Free Press.

Free Press is a nonprofit media advocacy group founded in 2003 to address issues such as press freedom, net neutrality and media consolidation. The group has at times been confused with The Free Press, a separate news outlet launched in 2024 by conservative journalist Bari Weiss. Karr emphasized the distinction, noting that it was crucial not to conflate the two. 

This summer, Free Press released a report based on Karr’s six-month review of the nation’s top media owners. As part of the project, the organization created the Media Capitulation Index, which rates U.S. media companies on their supplications to President Donald Trump.

What drew notice wasn’t only the calling out of household-name companies but the visual design of the Index: a chicken-head scale marking the degree of capitulation.

“We figured it would help people get a quick visual understanding of the scale,” Karr told E&P.

Below is a Q&A with Karr, edited for clarity.

E&P: What led you to create the Media Capitulation Index?

Karr: It dates back to the first Trump administration, where we recognized how obsessed he was with the way the media portrayed him, and how aggressively he was attacking journalists, calling news organizations the enemies of the people. We realized that his efforts to control the media in a second administration would be slightly more refined … and we started to see media companies complying in advance.

The Media Capitulation Index, created by Free Press, rates U.S. media companies on their supplications to President Donald Trump.

E&P: How did you decide which companies to study?

Karr: We examined the 35 largest media companies, and the criteria we used to determine inclusion were their market capitalization, reach, audience size and degree of influence, which is a somewhat subjective determining factor. There are a lot of companies, especially newspaper companies, that are under-capitalized but are influential. The New York Times and The Washington Post are great examples of that.

E&P: What did your research involve?

Karr: I identified the 35 largest media companies and then did deep research, probably six months of research, on all of them, to look at how they’ve changed since Trump was elected. It’s not unusual for media companies to hire government relations experts when there’s a change in party in the White House. But this was something of a different order. We’re seeing them bend over backwards … to show their loyalty to the Trump administration.

E&P: What kinds of capitulation did you find?

Karr: We identified four areas. One was through payments to Trump and his family to settle legal suits. Another was rolling back prior commitments to diversity, equity and inclusion. The third was editorial manipulation or censorship. And the fourth was simply currying favor — through dinners at Mar-a-Lago or attending inaugural ceremonies.

For example, a lot of the major tech companies, from Elon Musk’s X to Zuckerberg’s Meta, and Google, were congratulating the president on a decisive victory. Jeff Bezos, the owner of Amazon and The Washington Post, said he was extremely optimistic about the Trump administration, pledged to help Trump, and then donated millions of dollars to the Inauguration Committee.

This sort of capitulation of the media isn’t just limited to these wealthy owners of tech platforms. We’re also seeing it in Disney and Paramount paying out lawsuit settlements to President Trump. So, we started examining these high-profile cases. I think anybody who follows the media is aware of the degree of capitulation and the hoops that Paramount was willing to jump through to secure federal approval of their proposed merger with Skydance.

E&P: How does the rating system work?

The Media Capitulation Index rates the degrees of capitulation on a five-chicken scale.

Karr: We decided to rate the degrees of capitulation using chickens. We have a five-chicken scale, one chicken being vulnerable and five chickens being propaganda. We applied that rating system as a visual way for people to quickly understand where a company stands in relation to the Trump White House. There’s also an additional symbol, a star, for a company that, in our analysis, is completely independent.

E&P: Who scored the worst?

Karr: Two companies got the five-chicken rating. The first is Trump Media, which owns Truth Social. By definition, five chickens means propaganda. The other is X, which Elon Musk owns. He has this on-again, off-again bromance with Donald Trump that often manifests itself in using X to push MAGA narratives.

It’s also interesting to see not only the companies that are the best and the worst, but to look at those on the scale between. It’s a kind of immediate capitulation, a slippery slope. Once a company takes a step onto that scale, the slide to propaganda can be pretty swift. Paramount, which has adhered to many directives issued by the Trump administration’s FCC to secure approval of its merger, is a good example. The Washington Post, which Jeff Bezos owns, pulled a political cartoon that portrayed Bezos genuflecting before Donald Trump. That political cartoonist had never been censored until then. She subsequently left The Washington Post.

E&P: Were there any surprises in your findings?

Karr: I was surprised when I found there were two companies — Bloomberg and Netflix — that earned an independent star. Sometimes it takes a billionaire to stand up to a billionaire. Michael Bloomberg is no friend of Donald Trump, and Bloomberg (the news organization) prides itself on accuracy and objectivity …

The Media Capitulation Index found media owners capitulated in four ways.

Another surprise is this idea that the larger you are, the more likely you are to capitulate. If we were to do this analysis of smaller, independent news outlets like ProPublica or Techdirt, there would be a lot more stars out there.

E&P: Will you continue to update the Index?

Karr: Yes, we plan to continue to update the Index every year. Between now and then, in instances where a company does something egregious, we will update its profile in the Media Capitulation Index … and we may even change chicken ratings and do some press around what we’re seeing.

E&P: What do you hope comes from this project?

Karr: Once you demonstrate that there’s a pattern of capitulation across major media outlets, it’s incumbent on Free Press, as an advocacy organization, to also point to the solutions. In the Index, we make four recommendations: more robust funding of public media, restoring and strengthening media ownership limits, applying stronger public interest criteria to media mergers, and restoring the independence of federal agencies like the FCC and FTC.

There’s also a shaming component to it. I have heard from several people in the media industry that they are paying attention to the Index … Hopefully, the worst ones will be shamed into doing things or being better watchdogs for the public interest.

Diane Sylvester is an award-winning 30-year multimedia news veteran. She works as a reporter, editor and newsroom strategist. She can be reached at diane.povcreative@gmail.com