WASHINGTON—In the wake of a widespread crackdown on DEI initiatives by the Trump administration and Federal Communications Commission, the Free Press has issued a new report detailing the impact those efforts have had on the civil rights commitments of the nation’s largest media companies.
The report, Complicit: Corporate Media’s Capitulation to Trump’s Attacks on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, aims to shed new light on the ongoing capitulation of major media and tech companies to the dictates and provides a disturbing reversal of prior civil-rights commitments.
Complicit finds that 26 of the top 35 media companies caved to the administration by rolling back various DEI policies and practices just days or weeks after Trump issued anti-DEI executive orders on Jan. 20 and 21, 2025. Some of these companies got ahead of the executive orders: Amazon, Disney, Fox Corporation, Google, Meta and X had already backed away from prior diversity, equity and inclusion measures in the weeks following Trump’s November 2024 election.
As previously reported by TV Tech in our coverage of the FCC, NBCUniversal, CBS, AT&T, Verizon and several pending mergers, many of the media companies and telcos who have rolled back their DEI policies agreed to the changes as part of an effort to get FCC approval of pending mergers.
Report author and Free Press Campaign Manager Ruth Livier wrote that “Trump’s anti-diversity, equity and inclusion executive orders form the foundation of his regime’s efforts to dismantle our democracy. Outside of Trump and his enablers, no one is safe from attack. Failing to serve as an essential check against tyranny, corporate players are increasingly serving as megaphones for the MAGA movement, putting vulnerable communities at greater risk of attack — and betraying our democratic values.”
The full report is available here.
