How to Stop A Billionaire
Benjamin Franklin knew why journalism matters.
“Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.”
Benjamin Franklin wrote those words in 1737, understanding what today’s oligarchs know perfectly well: control the information, control the state.
Last week, as Jeff Bezos razed The Washington Post, firing 300 journalists and closing entire sections, we witnessed exactly what Franklin warned against. Not government censorship, but something more insidious: billionaire capture of the press itself.
Franklin, America’s first great independent publisher, knew that a free press wasn’t just about protecting speech—it was about ensuring that truth could reach “the common people” faster than established power could bury it. That’s why I founded Raw America: to build a people-powered news network that couldn’t be silenced.
Franklin didn’t wait for permission to challenge the colonial establishment; he grabbed his printing press and got to work. Today’s oligarch takeover demands the same independence. Raw America exists because readers refuse to let billionaires control democracy’s information. Subscribe today and help us prove reader-funded media can still beat corporate propaganda.
I started Raw Story as a liberal alternative to the Drudge Report. Drudge proved that independent publishers could beat the establishment to the truth. I wanted to build something that could do the same thing for progressives.
Those early days were pure Franklin: printing articles to pin at coffee shops, taping Raw Story’s URL to telephone poles, and emailing every blogger I could find. It was bootstrap publishing in the digital age, exactly what Franklin would have done with a printing press and a cause.
We succeeded because we had something Franklin understood: the freedom that comes from answering to readers instead of advertisers, to truth instead of access.
Franklin faced the same choice when challenging colonial authorities. Established publishers played it safe to protect their government printing contracts. Franklin chose truth over access and helped birth a revolution.
Today’s media landscape offers the same choice. Oligarchs like Bezos don’t gut newsrooms because newspapers can’t be profitable—they do it because journalism threatens their interests.
Raw America is building the infrastructure democracy desperately needs. Reader-funded journalism that breaks stories oligarchs won’t touch. A newsroom that grows stronger with every subscription. Becoming a paying supporter and help us build Franklin’s vision: a press accountable to people, not power.
Franklin warned that “freedom of speech is a principal pillar of a free government. When this support is taken away, the constitution of a free society is dissolved.”
We’re building something Franklin would recognize: reader-funded journalism that can’t be bought, bullied, or silenced. Our partnership with Really American has created a progressive media powerhouse reaching millions.
Franklin spent his life proving that ordinary people could govern themselves if they had access to reliable information. He published newspapers, organized libraries, and founded the postal system because he understood that democracy’s survival depends on informed citizens who get the truth faster than power can spin it.
Every subscription to Raw America is a bet that Franklin’s vision can still work—that readers will choose truth over comfort, independence over access. Every upgrade helps rebuild the press system democracy requires.
The choice between Franklin’s vision and Bezos’s agenda comes down to whether people like you believe truth is worth fighting for. Join us and prove independent journalism can’t be silenced.
Raw America carries on Franklin’s tradition. We’re still first to the story, still willing to make enemies in high places, still betting that readers want truth more than comfort.
Franklin understood something modern media executives have forgotten: journalism isn’t just a business. The moment profit becomes more important than truth, democracy begins to die on the vine.
Franklin would recognize what we’re building—and he’d know why it matters.
Thank you for understanding that a free press isn’t a luxury we can take for granted. Thank you for choosing independence over oligarchy, truth over access, democracy over power.
Because if we don’t choose, Franklin’s warning becomes Franklin’s prophecy.
—John Byrne, Founder
Raw Story and Raw America