Amidst a perfect storm of mass layoffs following the rise of artificial intelligence and the enormous distrust the American public now has in elitist media, how will the media stave off irrelevancy?
Yes, elitist media have seen their share of layoffs in recent years, with a recent example being The Washington Post having to cut “about 30 percent of all employees” in early February, according to The New York Times.
And The Post was not alone.
Paramount (CBS News’s parent company) laid off about 1,000 employees back in October with another 1,000 set to follow, cutting approximately 10% of its workforce (roughly 2,000 employees); Warner Bros. is slated to cut close to 10% of its workforce; Business Insider slashed the size of its labor force, affecting 21% across every department; NBCUniversal saw cuts across several of its offerings following restructuring; ABC/Disney saw a round of layoffs that impacted almost 200 employees (6% of the workforce) and is also restructuring; CNN cut approximately 200 jobs in January 2025; PBS sent 34 staffers packing; and CNBC also laid off 12 international employees, as Deadline reported on Feb. 26. And that’s just to name a few.
How did the elitist media get to this point?
The elitist media hinted at a reason when they complained about advancements in technology, suggesting that artificial intelligence (AI) and the advent of chatbots would gobble up all their views. AI integration into search platforms didn’t ease those concerns.
Indeed, news viewership has shifted. A Reuters Institute report confirmed that “traditional media sources such as TV, print, and news websites continue to fall, while dependence on social media, video platforms, and online aggregators grows,” particularly in the United States. AI chatbots and interfaces are also being used more often as a source for news and information, and while the numbers may seem small back in June 2025 (7% for news consumption each week), people under 25-years of age appear to be using AI at a much higher clip (15%).
But there’s more than meets the eye when it comes to the elitist media’s sagging viewership numbers.
A Pew Research Center report published Feb. 11, 2026, revealed a major reason why: a majority of Americans (57%) have expressed low confidence in journalists to act in the best interest of the public, including “40% who say they have not too much confidence and 17% who say they have none at all.”
These results are just the latest in a trend of bad public polling for the elitist press. As previously reported by MRC, public trust in news media reached a new low back in October 2025 as Americans signaled that they have had enough of the elitist media’s anti-conservative partisanship. An October Gallup survey found that 7 in 10 adults have either “not very much” confidence (36%) or “none at all” (34%) in newspapers, television and radio to report the news fully, accurately and fairly.
This seemingly dour backdrop could lead the unsuspecting viewer to believe that the elitist media have piddled their way into irrelevancy.
But the elitist media are not to be pitied for their alleged plight. Far from becoming irrelevant, the elitist media have found shelter by resting in the shadows of the wings of the tech titans.
As MRC Free Speech America has revealed through numerous studies and reports, elitist media are finding preferred placement in the “Big Four News Apps” — Apple News, Google News, Microsoft’s MSN and Yahoo News and through lucrative AI-media contracts to propagate their leftist narratives.
Two recent MRC studies are illustrative of the point. MRCFSA’s March 4 study asked six major AI programs to answer the question: “Is Pete Hegseth right to require AI companies that contract with the Department of War to support all legal U.S. defense programs?” Only Grok, run by Elon Musk’s xAI, answered affirmatively. This is unsurprising, as the other Big Tech platforms rushed to cite elitist media outlets, several of which they have formed special contracts with.
Take, for example, Microsoft’s Copilot, which used its response to lambast Secretary Hegseth’s decision as “incoherent.” What Copilot did not mention is that Microsoft has contracted with elitist media outlets like The Associated Press and Vox Media, and even has a special deal with notoriously biased Wikimedia (which runs Wikipedia). As the old saying goes: Garbage in, garbage out.
A day after the AI study, MRCFSA released a second study showing that the Apple News app cited left-leaning and other outlets over right-leaning outlets 552 to 8. This was actually an improvement over the previous month, when right-leaning media was entirely blockaded from appearing in the morning editions on the news app.
While any publication engaging in this type of bias would be problematic, Apple News’s misconduct is particularly pernicious. Apple News comes preinstalled on Apple iPhones and is given priority over rival applications. This means that the anti-conservative prejudice from this single app, which presents itself as a neutral news aggregator, is artificially amplified as a news source for millions.
Both of these studies show a simple, yet sobering truth. Even as the American public has lost faith in their product, the elitist media are still managing to monopolize the mediasphere through clandestine alliances with Big Tech. It would seem the only way the fake news media can remain relevant is by tipping the scales. But not on MRC’s watch.
