Pressing Issues Holiday Gift Guide
We’ve (almost) made it to the end of 2025. And we couldn’t have done it without a little help from our friends and favorite writers.
This is the last Pressing Issues post of 2025. We want to thank all of you who have subscribed, shared and shaped what we’re doing here. We’re building a new space to wrestle with big ideas about the future of the media — and those who are fighting to change it for the better.
All we really want for Hanukkah and/or Christmas and/or Kwanzaa and/or whatever you celebrate is a few blocked mergers and an end to government censorship. But sharing and urging your friends to subscribe to this newsletter would be an amazing gift for us.
If you want to do more, donating to support our work at Free Press is the best way we can continue to grow this newsletter. Your generous support is what keeps us fully independent and always outspoken. Better yet, a generous donor will double all donations we receive through Dec. 31. Thanks for your support!
We couldn’t do this work without help from our friends. At the end of a near-impossible year like 2025, we’re lucky to have so many incredible allies. We’re also especially grateful for the independent journalists who cover our issues and refuse to cower and capitulate.
I was inspired by the gift guide that Marisa Kabas at The Handbasket did a few weeks ago to celebrate some of her favorite emerging and independent outlets. So I asked a bunch of colleagues and contributors to Pressing Issues to highlight and share the work of some of their favorite muckrackers and good troublemakers.
Incredible local journalism
Vanessa Maria Graber — who when she’s not organizing for Free Press covers city government for The Philadelphia Hall Monitor — recommends The Kensington Voice as “exactly the kind of hyperlocal news that we are championing through our future of journalism work.” The Voice is a nonprofit newsroom serving several neighborhoods in North Philadelphia that provides accurate, transparent and community-informed news and information for free, while “building trust in the community, and changing narratives about Philadelphia.” Check out this investigation of the city of Philadelphia's Wellness Court for an example of the Voice’s crucial work.
Emily Rizzo
Jessica J. González praises CALÓ News because its reporters are on the ground in Los Angeles producing incredible journalism that’s holding ICE and local law-enforcement officials accountable. “This all-Latinx newsroom faced down state violence and brutality as ICE invaded Los Angeles,” says Jessica, who also serves on the CALÓ board of directors, “playing such an important role in documenting government abuses that the administration's DHS account trolled them on Twitter.” Check out this recent article about activists’ protests outside of Los Angeles City Hall about the twin problems of mass deportations and evictions.
Michelle Zacarias
Sarah Stone lauds The Shoestring, an independent online news outlet in Western Massachusetts. “Managing Editor Brian Zayatz played a key role this year in building support for a sign-on letter to create a Massachusetts Civic Information Consortium,” she says, “organizing an in-person gathering with journalists and Free Press Action staff in October, and connecting with other newsrooms to share the initiative and encourage their support.” The Shoestring provides critical local reporting, from exposing a Trump-supported doxxing campaign to deport a Hampshire College student to conducting an in-depth investigation on wage theft featuring a searchable employer database and an analysis of how local labor organizers have fought back.
Morgan Lees
Pressing Issues Co-Editor Julio Ricardo Varela couldn’t pick just one outlet to plug. He salutes the independent journalists in his home state of Massachusetts like El Planeta, Worcester Sucks and I Love It and the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism. And during a time when the Trump administration is targeting Latino communities nationally, Julio relies on reporting from countless outlets that cover local voices, including Cicero Independiente, Conecta Arizona, L.A. Taco, 9 Millones and Trucha.
(Speaking of plugs: Let me add Julio’s personal project, The Latino Newsletter, to this growing list of must-reads.)
The Latino Newsletter
Investigations and insight
Jenna Ruddock — whose piece on local organizing to stop the rapid expansion of data centers was just published at Tech Policy Press — shouts out More Perfect Union’s ongoing coverage of the harms data centers are inflicting on local communities. Jenna also extols 404 Media’s investigative reporting on tech and surveillance.
Timothy Karr relies on Micah Sifry’s coverage of the ins and outs of online political organizing. Sifry’s newsletter The Connector offers weekly commentary on the ideas and people engaged in making our democracy healthier — and his depth of knowledge reflects his decades of involvement in the field. “Sifry doesn’t shy from calling out those on the left and right who occasionally get this essential work wrong,” Tim says, “but his critiques are well argued and written with the sincerity of someone who knows that our very future as a civil society is at stake.”
Micah L. Sifry
Futurists and visionaries
At a moment when so much is being threatened and taken away, I’m especially grateful for those pushing us to look into the future and figure out what needs to happen so we can get there. I’m energized by the visioning of Local News 2035, whose work I discussed this week on the Press Forward site.
Press Forward
I deeply value the approach of my comrades at People’s Tech Project, who are pushing all of us working for media-and-tech justice to deepen our analysis, understand our roles, and follow the lead of directly impacted people and the groups they lead.
Finally, one of the big things that happened in 2025 was that Media 2070 — which had been part of Free Press since its founding — became an independent project. With a talented team in place under the leadership of Anshantia Oso, I know they’re going to do great things and urge everyone to support their essential work to move us toward a “media future we deserve.”
Media 2070
Teamwork
On Wednesday, Free Press called on the Federal Communications Commission to reject further local-media consolidation. In extensive comments filed in the agency’s “quadrennial review” of media-ownership rules, we argued that “elimination of the few remaining ownership limits would impart devastating consequences on the public’s welfare and ultimately democracy itself.”
“Broadcast-TV chains and their lobbyists claim that consolidation is in the public interest, arguing that mergers and acquisitions result in an increase in local news — and that local reporting declines in the absence of consolidation,” said Free Press Senior Advisor S. Derek Turner, who authored the filing. “This is nonsensical, and it runs counter to all available evidence.”
Also on Wednesday, I joined the International Documentary Association, Future Film Coalition, Art House Convergence and the American Economic Liberties Project for a “teach-in” about media consolidation and the dangers of the dueling efforts by Netflix and Paramount Skydance to take over Warner Bros. Discovery. They’ve posted the whole session here on what’s at stake in this merger — and how we might stop it.
At risk of this newsletter becoming a Jane Fonda fansite, I also want to share this great interview she did alongside Free Press’ Jessica J. González with The Washington Post on the threats media mergers pose to free speech.
The kicker
“An independent agency overseen by Congress, the Commission is the federal agency responsible for implementing and enforcing America’s communications laws and regulations.” — FCC website, Dec. 17, 2025, 11:52 a.m.
“The FCC is not an independent agency.” — FCC Chairman Brendan Carr testifying before a Senate oversight hearing, Dec. 17, 11:55 a.m.
“An independentU.S. government agency overseen by Congress, the Commission is the federal agency …” — edited FCC website, Dec. 17, 12:08 p.m.
Pressing Issues will be back in January. Happy holidays and Happy New Year to everyone except the Censorship Czar!
About the author
Craig Aaron is the co-CEO of Free Press and Free Press Action and a guy with two first names. Follow him on Bluesky.
