Local news outlets show the New York Times how to cover the growing pro-democracy movement.

The NYTimes leadership is still indifferent to democracy. Just look at its front page.

On April 5, 2025 over one million people at 1,400+ events across all 50-states gathered in their cities and towns to stand up for their freedoms, their families, their communities, and American democracy.

Covering the pro-democracy movement (and reality) is not partisan.

Big media by-and-large failed to communicate this momentous day — local news orgs covered it better, much better (as we document below)! Look at the reality of the video with your own eyes—compiled by the event organizers. The influential New York Times covered this momentous event of a 1+ million people taking to the streets to advocate for their futures and American democracy with a below-the-fold, no headline, wide-angle photo of a segment of a demonstration in North Carolina with text on page A18 on 4/6/25 (image below).

The New York Times’ editorial choice to minimize coverage of this momentous day of civic action is yet another sign that Publisher A.G. Sulzberger (sixth generation media oligarch) and Editor-in-Chief Joe Kahn (son of a billionaire) do not consider American democracy and its defenders worthy of substantive or prioritized coverage. The Founding Fathers would be infuriated that the enshrined Constitutional protections they bestowed on a Free Press to defend against tyranny and assaults on Americans’ rights, freedoms and democratic form of government were being squandered by the most influential American news organization.

Normalizing autocracy is an epic Fourth Estate failure.

America is in a polycrisis: a Constitutional crisis, oligarchs chaotically and illegally dismantling the Federal Government, the willful assault on 100+ years of civil rights, the collapse of three “co-equal” branches of government, a malevolent and incompetent executive branch and cabinet, a President extorting universities, news organizations and law firms and an emboldened fascist movement consolidating power at the state and federal level. News organizations should be sounding the alarm daily “This is not normal. This is a crisis. Who is fighting back?” In addition to sounding an alarm that democracy is under attack and at risk, news orgs should also be elevating and amplifying the individuals and organizations mobilizing in support of democracy. To not do so is a Fourth Estate dereliction of duty.

That the NYT leadership chose to only muster ONE article of a growing national movement that mobilized 1+ million Americans in defense of civil society and American democracy demonstrates an editorial bias. Why? Margaret Sullivan offers hypotheses why the Times and other dominant news orgs minimized these pro-democracy demonstrations in her American Crisis blog post Big protests — but not big news?

To NYT leadership democracy is just another “issue”.

In the past Joe Kahn has minimized the importance of democracy itself (rather than considering it the life-sustaining superstructure on which America subsists). Nearly a year ago he exposed his laissez-faire perspective on democracy: “It’s our job to cover the full range of issues that people have. At the moment, democracy is one of them. But it’s not the top one — immigration happens to be the top [of polls], and the economy and inflation is the second. Should we stop covering those things because they’re favorable to Trump and minimize them? I don’t even know how it’s supposed to work in the view of Dan Pfeiffer or the White House. We become an instrument of the Biden campaign?”

Will the poll-driven NYT editorial leadership now alter its coverage seeing millions of Americans mobilize responding to a democracy in crisis?

Other newsrooms follow the NYT’s lead, so their editorial bias even more widely negatively impacts Americans understanding of the pro-democracy movement - and in effect dampens its potential growth. For those who say “but most people read it online” — there was only a 12 hour window the story was present on the NYT homepage; 48 hours later it’s nearly impossible to find on the website. We are still waiting for coverage that meets the moment — this front page is a microcosm of NYT failure to defend democracy with “All the news that’s fit to print” and without “fear or favor”.

It’s notable how Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post downplayed the D.C. event even though attended by multiple Congressional representatives. To further illustrate the editorial priorities and power, on 4/7/2025 WaPo editors used 50% of the front page to emphasize an event that changes ZERO American’s lives: there is now a new all time NHL goal-scoring leader. A Russian hockey-player and supporter of Putin no less…

Good news! Local news orgs did a much better job. See how it’s done!

Local news org and their courageous editors did a much better job covering the reality of the day of civic action. They continue to be sentinels and beacons of the reality of what’s happening in America. Imagine the impact had the NYT editors curated the front page to look like any of these?

Here is how the national day of action was covered in local papers: (NOTE: this blog post has many images below so it may be clipped. It may be better viewed in a browser).

Your pro-democracy actions in support of a better-informed America:

• Support local news orgs. Match your media diet with your values support local and independent news orgs use and share our searchable 50-state local news directory https://www.mediaanddemocracyproject.org/journalism-directory

• Ask the media oligarch who runs the New York Times THE question: Send a letter to A.G. Sulzberger - ask him if he has a redline that could lead him to switching gears at NYT to become partisan for democracy?

  Arthur G. Sulzberger

  The New York Times Company

  620 Eighth Avenue

  New York, NY 10018