The Press in Peril: How Power, Politics, and Profit Are Reshaping Journalism

At a time when trust in mass media has plummeted to record lows, the journalism industry faces unprecedented challenges. The digital revolution has disrupted traditional business models, leading to newsroom layoffs and the shuttering of local outlets. This upheaval has left many questioning whether journalism can regain its footing and continue to play its vital role supporting democracy by informing the electorate and holding leaders accountable.

On March 3, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jesse Eisinger was the special guest at an event hosted by the Corporations and Society Initiative (CASI) at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. He came to talk about the crisis in journalism and what models might fill the void left by traditional media's decline.

A senior editor and reporter at ProPublica, Eisinger has spent his career exposing financial misconduct and unchecked corporate power. His book, The Chicken Shit Club, takes aim at the Department of Justice’s repeated failures to prosecute top executives. Eisinger’s fearless reporting has earned him a reputation as someone uninterested in currying favor with Wall Street or Washington insiders.

Eisinger described the central theme of his career as exposing elite impunity— how the powerful engage in wrongdoing and get away with it. Unlike many investigative reporters who focus on victims, he is drawn to uncovering the actions of “bad guys,” particularly those whose conduct, while legal, distorts society.

He cited ProPublica’s The Secret IRS Files as an example of his approach, where his team challenged conventional tax reporting by comparing billionaire tax payments to their wealth growth rather than just their reported income. This method, though controversial, revealed how the ultra-wealthy legally minimize taxes by keeping their income artificially low and borrowing against assets.

“It's perfectly legal,” he said. “It's a very simple method to avoid taxes and that was a groundbreaking analysis that we came up with.” It brought much-needed attention to a deeply entrenched practice.

Eisinger emphasized the value in using investigative journalism to overturn accepted narratives with hard facts, forcing a reexamination of systemic issues.

Eisinger didn’t mince words about the state of journalism. “The media model is catastrophically broken.”  He explained that for decades the business model underpinning traditional news outlets has been unraveling, a decline accelerated by the rise of the internet. Simultaneously, a growing movement—particularly from the political right—has worked to delegitimize journalism itself, painting it as inherently biased.

“The crisis has only gotten worse,” he warned. “Facts don’t win anymore.”

Eisinger shared the story of how the nonprofit investigative newsroom emerged in response to this decline. Founded in 2008 by former Wall Street Journal editor Paul Steiger with funding from Herb and Marion Sandler, ProPublica set out to preserve the kind of expensive, time-intensive reporting that newspapers were rapidly cutting.

“Ironically, I had written some pretty nasty stories about the Sandlers when I was at the Wall Street Journal, but Herb was charming, and when I got him on the phone, he almost convinced me they hadn’t done anything wrong,” he said with a laugh. Fortunately, the tension didn’t prevent ProPublica from hiring Eisinger after he was laid off.

Since then, the nonprofit has grown exponentially, proving that essential investigative journalism can attract a sizeable audience. “We showed that investigative reporting wasn’t just a luxury, but something readers actually wanted.” 

Today, ProPublica has a $45 million budget and nearly 200 employees, making it the largest nonprofit newsroom in the U.S. But despite its success, Eisinger lamented that it’s not nearly enough to offset the losses occurring across the industry.

“ProPublica is a tiny, tiny solution,” he said. “We haven’t solved the crisis at all. In fact, it’s mushroomed.” While organizations like The New York Times have adapted by bundling news with entertainment, Eisinger fears that much of the media landscape remains in freefall. “We need new models, and we need them fast,” he said. “Because what’s happening now? It’s not working.”

When asked about the increasing concentration of media ownership among billionaires, Jesse Eisinger pushed back on the idea that wealthy owners are necessarily a problem. He pointed out that, historically, major newspapers like The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, and The Washington Post were controlled by wealthy families—the Ochs Sulzbergers, the Bancrofts, the Chandlers, and the Grahams—who largely acted as stewards rather than meddling owners. While their newspapers had distinct editorial leanings, these families generally prioritized journalistic independence over personal business interests.

The real concern, Eisinger argued, isn’t wealth, but is instead how today’s billionaire owners treat their media properties. Jeff Bezos initially appeared to follow the traditional steward model by investing in The Washington Post without heavy-handed interference. However, recent shifts—including a reported editorial push toward prioritizing personal freedoms and free markets—raise concerns that business interests may be taking precedence. Similarly, Patrick Soon-Shiong’s tenure at the Los Angeles Times has been chaotic, with Eisinger calling him "a charlatan and a liar" whose stewardship has been driven more by personal ambition than journalistic integrity.

The fundamental difference between past and present media moguls, Eisinger explained, is that today’s billionaire owners often have extensive outside business interests that make them vulnerable to external pressures—from governments, regulators, or their own financial priorities.

“Maybe Bezos wants to go to space more than he wants to own The Washington Post,” Eisinger remarked, suggesting that, for some, media ownership is less about public trust and more about wielding influence while avoiding scrutiny. The real crisis, he concluded, isn’t just concentrated wealth in media—it’s the absence of public-minded responsibility among those who now control the news.

Eisinger argued that the erosion of trust in news media is not accidental but the consequence of a deliberate, decades-long ideological campaign, especially from the political right, aimed at discrediting journalism by portraying it as inherently biased.

Asked how journalists can regain public trust, Eisinger noted that the common response has been to emphasize factual accuracy and professional ethics. However, he argued, this approach alone has fallen short of overcoming widespread skepticism.

At ProPublica, Eisinger explained, journalists work to rebuild trust through transparency, detailing their investigative process, rigorously fact-checking, and engaging with subjects before publication. However, even this approach faces resistance, as subjects increasingly refuse to engage and instead preemptively discredit reporting, calling it biased or false.

Eisinger shared a recent example of how ProPublica’s rigorous reporting process can still be weaponized against them.  His team investigated whether now Secretary of Defense and former Fox News personality Pete Hegseth had misrepresented his acceptance to West Point, after inconsistencies in his statements. Twice, West Point’s public affairs office told them there was no record of Hegseth applying or being accepted. Believing they had a legitimate story, they followed their “no surprises editorial process” and contacted Hegseth, who eventually provided an acceptance letter.

“And we decided that's good enough for us, we're not going to do a story about that,” he said.

The next day, Hegseth preemptively tweeted about an alleged “hit piece,” triggering a wave of attacks accusing ProPublica of bias. When Eisinger explained their reporting process, critics instead spun the incident into a conspiracy, claiming West Point had lied. The episode highlighted the impossibility of restoring trust when facts are dismissed in favor of predetermined and dogmatically held narratives.

When asked whether recent media lawsuits and the White House’s tighter control over press access threaten journalism, Jesse Eisinger was clear: “These aren’t settlements—they’re bribes.”

He argued that big media companies, driven more by business interests than journalistic integrity, caved to baseless lawsuits out of fear—damaging the industry in the process. While journalists should be held accountable for mistakes, he said, these cases had no merit. The bigger threat? The Trump administration’s crackdown on the press, using intimidation and rhetoric like calling journalists “the enemy of the people” to silence criticism.

“What we're seeing is that the use of power works,” he stated. “That's why they call it power, and it can work to make people afraid. People have mortgages to pay, they've got college tuition, and they want to keep their jobs. So, it's not actually that hard to scare people and get them in line.”

Eisinger predicted that worse attacks on journalism lie ahead, including potential moves against nonprofit news organizations like ProPublica.

When asked how ProPublica and the journalism industry are preparing for legal and political attacks, Eisinger admitted they haven’t been proactive or unified enough. He criticized the weak response after The Associated Press was ousted from the White House press pool, saying media organizations should have pushed back harder. As for ProPublica, he acknowledged they expect attacks but don’t have an action plan, as the threats remain unclear. Potential threats include federal or congressional investigations, challenges to their nonprofit status, or lawsuits from wealthy individuals looking for vulnerabilities.

While they haven’t been targeted yet, Eisinger warned, “Nonprofit journalism is vulnerable, and we will be tested.”