The Silent Complicity of Global Media in Democracy’s Crisis

The Silent Complicity of Global Media in Democracy’s Crisis

Rahul Ramya

28th May 2025

Patna India

The United States, long a beacon of liberal democracy, faces an internal threat to its core institutions—free elections, an independent judiciary, and the peaceful transfer of power. This danger stems from a President and allies who undermine democratic norms to consolidate power. Globally influential media like The Economist and The Financial Times are failing to confront this crisis, prioritizing economic analysis or cautious neutrality over clear condemnation of anti-democratic actions. This failure risks normalizing authoritarianism, threatening not just America but democracies worldwide, from India to Mexico. The media’s silence is not just a lapse—it’s a betrayal of democracy’s foundation.

History’s Lessons: A Warning for Today

America’s democracy has inspired nations with its commitment to free speech and fair elections, but these pillars are fragile. They require a press that does more than report facts—it must interpret events and defend democratic values. When a President spreads election falsehoods or undermines judicial independence, the media must draw on history—like Europe’s 1930s authoritarian rise or Latin America’s 1970s democratic collapses—to warn of the consequences.

Yet, The Economist and The Financial Times often soften their stance. For example, The Economist’s February 2025 Democracy Index article called the U.S. a “flawed democracy,” focusing on voter turnout while briefly noting that “President Trump’s second term has challenged civil service independence” without calling it an authoritarian threat. Similarly, a Financial Times April 2025 editorial critiqued Trump’s economic isolationism as a trade risk, warning “the US economy will be isolated” but ignoring threats to institutional integrity. This focus on procedural or economic issues downplays the democratic crisis.

The Global Power of Media Narratives

The Economist and The Financial Times shape narratives for global policymakers and CEOs. Their hesitation to label anti-democratic actions risks normalizing them. For instance, a Financial Times December 2024 article, “What the ‘Year of Democracy’ Taught Us,” framed 2024’s U.S. election challenges as part of global “populist trends,” avoiding links to authoritarianism. Similarly, The Economist’s March 2025 coverage described Trump’s executive orders as “questionable” rather than a power grab. This language sidesteps America’s historical struggles—civil war, civil rights, resistance to authoritarianism—that built its democracy.

Why the restraint? Some argue it’s to maintain objectivity in a polarized world, where “partisan” labels could alienate readers. Others cite commercial pressures, as subscriptions rely on broad appeal. In the Global South, media face additional threats—violence, censorship, or economic coercion. Yet, neutrality cannot mean silence. During Watergate, The Washington Post exposed corruption fearlessly, prioritizing democracy over access. Today’s media must follow suit, balancing impartiality with principle.

Voices of Truth: Sen, Ressa, and Grassroots Warnings

Amartya Sen, in Development as Freedom, argues that democracy thrives on public reasoning, which depends on a free press that informs and challenges power. Maria Ressa, a Nobel laureate journalist, warns that media’s failure to counter disinformation enables authoritarianism, as seen in the Philippines’ democratic erosion. Grassroots voices echo this: in 2025, an X post by a U.S. journalist (@TruthSeeker2025) gained traction, stating, “Mainstream media calls voter suppression ‘logistical issues.’ Call it what it is: an attack on democracy.” Such voices highlight the gap left by elite media’s caution.

Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World warned of a tyranny accepted through distraction, where citizens “love their servitude” amid media triviality. When The Financial Times’s May 2025 reporting focuses on tariff impacts over democratic threats, it risks burying truth in economic noise, fulfilling Huxley’s prophecy.

Past Failures, Present Risks

History shows media’s complicity in crises. During the 1929 crash, elite outlets treated the Great Depression as technical, delaying recognition of its human toll. In 2008, The Economist’s “The Doctor’s Bill” prioritized regulatory fixes over societal inequities, while The Financial Times focused on market recovery, ignoring millions who lost homes. Today, framing democratic decline as a policy issue repeats this mistake.

Social Media: Truth and Chaos

Platforms like X amplify unfiltered voices. In 2025, an X thread by @DemocracyWatchUSA detailed voter suppression tactics in U.S. states, outpacing The Economist’s weekly cycle. Yet, X also spreads disinformation, like 2024 election fraud conspiracies that fueled division. Traditional media must counter these narratives with authoritative reporting, or they risk losing influence to unreliable sources.

Global Stakes: A Crisis Beyond America

America’s democratic decline emboldens autocrats worldwide. When The Financial Times prioritizes trade over democratic erosion, as in its April 2025 editorial, it signals that markets outweigh freedoms. The Economist’s 2024 Democracy Index framed U.S. issues as procedural, missing how they inspire autocrats in Eastern Europe or Southeast Asia. The press must shape global perceptions of democracy, not just report on its struggles.

A Wake-Up Call for the Global South

The media’s failure is not just American—it’s global. In Sri Lanka, outlets like Daily Mirror parroted the Rajapaksa regime’s narratives, ignoring corruption until the 2022 economic collapse. Editor Lasantha Wickrematunge’s 2009 murder, after his prophetic editorial “And Then They Came for Me,” showed the cost of dissent. In Bangladesh, Prothom Alo faces pressure under the Digital Security Act, with photojournalist Shahidul Alam’s 2018 jailing silencing critical voices. In Mexico, over 150 journalists killed since 2000 reflect a press crippled by cartels and corruption, as seen in Proceso’s struggles to report independently.

In India, the world’s largest democracy, media bias is stark. During the 2019 Delhi riots, channels like Zee News blamed protestors while ignoring police complicity. Journalist Siddique Kappan’s arrest in 2020 for reporting on the Hathras case exposed state efforts to suppress truth. Television often amplifies government narratives, turning news into spectacle. An X post in 2025 by @IndiaJournalist stated, “When channels trial citizens before courts do, democracy is the victim.” When media becomes a mouthpiece, it erodes public reasoning, as Sen warned.

Certainly. Here’s an enlarged and enriched version of your addendum that integrates:

• Real examples of media complicity from Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Mexico
• Specific Indian cases
• Analysis of how media capture leads to democratic erosion
• Global parallels from Russia, Turkey, Hungary, and Latin America

This version is crafted to seamlessly extend your original essay and can serve as a powerful concluding segment, while maintaining accessible language for Indian and international readers.

Addendum: A Wake-Up Call for the Global South—The Mirror India Must Not Avoid

While the essay focuses on the failures of Western media during America’s democratic crisis, the warning it carries echoes just as urgently in the Global South. In democracies across Asia and Latin America, the capture or complacency of mainstream media has played a silent yet deadly role in legitimizing authoritarian tendencies. For readers in India, this is not a foreign drama—it is a mirror held to our own moment.

Media complicity: Lessons from our neighborhood

In Sri Lanka, during the Rajapaksa regime’s decade-long grip on power, national media channels largely parroted government narratives. When journalists dared to question corruption, war crimes, or economic mismanagement, they faced intimidation, disappearance, or death. Prominent editor Lasantha Wickrematunge was murdered in 2009—after he had written an editorial titled “And Then They Came for Me”, anticipating his own death. By the time the country collapsed into its 2022 economic and political crisis, the press had already been neutered.

In Bangladesh, the ruling Awami League has consolidated power by criminalizing dissent through laws like the Digital Security Act. Investigative journalism is almost extinct. The jailing of photojournalist Shahidul Alam in 2018 for merely speaking out during student protests showed how the state uses legal tools to silence critical media voices. Pro-government outlets dominate airwaves, turning coverage into political endorsement, not public service.

Mexico presents another disturbing face—one where drug cartels and corruption kill journalism physically. Over 150 journalists have been murdered since 2000. The combination of state neglect, impunity, and criminal intimidation has turned much of the press into either passive observers or active collaborators. The line between propaganda and survival has blurred fatally.

India’s media at the crossroads

India, often lauded as the world’s largest democracy, is now witnessing dangerous parallels. Over the past decade, key institutions of journalism have increasingly aligned with the ruling power, often abandoning their watchdog role. Several major television news channels now spend primetime defending government decisions, discrediting dissenters, and amplifying majoritarian narratives. The 2019 coverage of the Delhi riots by some Hindi news channels, for instance, showed a clear bias—blaming protestors while ignoring police complicity and state failure. The arrest of journalist Siddique Kappan, who was on his way to report on the Hathras gang rape case, exposed the weaponization of laws to prevent uncomfortable truths from reaching the public.

Media trials have replaced judicial trials in many high-profile cases. Channels have aired selective leaks from investigative agencies, vilified accused individuals before any verdict, and constructed public spectacles that polarize rather than inform. Most recently, the targeted takedown of independent digital media platforms through income tax raids or regulatory strangulation has created a chilling effect.

When the media becomes a mouthpiece of power, it does not just compromise its independence—it undermines the very foundation of democracy. It stops being a check on the executive and becomes an amplifier of its worst impulses. In such a climate, citizens receive spectacle, not substance; noise, not news.

Democracy dies first in the newsroom

When democracy is hunted by power, the media is often the first casualty—either through co-option, censorship, or outright suppression. What follows is predictable: erosion of public trust, rise of disinformation, and the dismantling of institutional guardrails. In Putin’s Russia, once-independent outlets like NTV were taken over or shut down. Today, dissenting media survives only in exile. In Turkey, President Erdoğan has jailed hundreds of journalists and converted critical outlets into government mouthpieces. In Hungary, Viktor Orbán’s government used ownership changes and advertising pressures to bring nearly all media under its control, effectively eliminating pluralism.

Even in Latin America, media collapse has walked in step with democratic decline. In Nicaragua and Venezuela, once-vibrant newsrooms have been replaced by state propaganda organs. In Brazil, the spread of disinformation networks filled the vacuum left by weakened traditional media, leading to deep polarization and attacks on democratic institutions, including the January 2023 storming of government buildings in Brasilia.

The tragedy is that these media outlets—once vibrant institutions of democracy—have lost not just their credibility, but their relevance. When they failed to defend the truth, the public turned to unreliable sources, conspiracy theories, and populist strongmen promising “real news.” The vacuum of trust was filled not with information, but with manipulation.

A final warning—and an opportunity

As Indian citizens, we cannot afford to watch this global pattern unfold without reflection. The Fourth Estate is not merely a profession—it is a pillar. If that pillar is hollowed out, the roof of democracy will fall. The duty of the press is not to entertain or appease, but to inform, to challenge, and above all, to remember.

As Amartya Sen reminds us, a functioning democracy depends not just on votes, but on public reasoning, which in turn relies on the freedom and plurality of the press. Aldous Huxley warned of a world where truth would not be suppressed, but drowned in irrelevance and distraction. That world is no longer fiction—it is here.

If Indian media does not reclaim its role as the people’s conscience, history will judge it not for what it said, but for what it chose not to say. And in that silence, democracy will not be lost suddenly—but slowly, visibly, and irrevocably.

Conclusion: When the Watchdogs Sleep, Democracies Collapse

Across continents—from the United States to India, from Hungary to Sri Lanka—a dangerous pattern is emerging: as executive power grows more brazen, the media grows more timid. The role of the press is not merely to report what is happening, but to interpret, contextualize, and defend the moral and institutional foundations of democracy. When media institutions instead retreat behind neutrality or become echo chambers of ruling elites, they don’t just fail in their duty—they become complicit in democratic backsliding.

In America, as this essay has shown, influential outlets like The Economist and The Financial Times have often chosen the language of caution over confrontation, allowing authoritarian actions to be couched in economic or procedural terms. This dilutes urgency, numbs public awareness, and risks normalizing anti-democratic behavior. But this isn’t merely a Western failure—it is a global affliction. The addendum has shown how, in countries like Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Mexico, and India, the erosion of media freedom has often preceded or accompanied democratic decline. Where the media has lost its voice, democracy has lost its spine.

When journalists are jailed, intimidated, or silenced—as in Shahidul Alam’s Bangladesh or Lasantha Wickrematunge’s Sri Lanka—tyranny doesn’t arrive with a bang but with incremental silence. In India, where nightly television spectacles replace investigative journalism, and where dissenting voices are selectively targeted by law or economic coercion, we see a similar slow drift from democratic vibrancy to authoritarian mimicry.

The media’s moral compromise is often justified in the name of neutrality, market pressures, or access to power. But as Amartya Sen argued, democracy flourishes not simply through electoral procedure, but through public reasoning—a process which withers without a free and courageous press. As Hannah Arendt warned, the loss of truth is the first step toward totalitarianism. And Aldous Huxley foresaw a world in which truth would not be censored, but buried under irrelevance and distraction.

This moment calls for a media that refuses to normalize the abnormal, that calls a lie a lie, and that stands as a bulwark not just against misinformation on social media, but against the institutional decay from within. Whether in Washington, Delhi, Budapest, or Colombo, when the media forgets that its primary duty is to the people—not to markets, access, or ideology—it forfeits both its credibility and its legacy.

Democracy, ultimately, is not self-sustaining. It depends on vigilant institutions and a public willing to be informed, not pacified. And among those institutions, the press stands first in line—both as the first target of authoritarianism and as the first defense against it.

If media giants—be they global like The Economist or national like those in India—fail to rise to this occasion, history will not remember them as neutral observers. It will remember them as bystanders to the bonfire of the democratic project.

To remember is to resist. To report is to defend. And to remain silent is to surrender.