2026: The year we really need independent media

Happy New Year from The David Pakman Show

If you’re reading this, congratulations: you survived 2025.

It was a long year. A weird year. A “did that really happen?” year. The kind of year where you look at the news and think, I would like to unsubscribe from reality, and reality says, best I can do is another push notification. The pace was exhausting, the stakes were real, and for a lot of people the cost was not theoretical.

Since Trump took office in January 2025, a lot of what we’ve watched unfold follows a simple formula. Protect the powerful, reward the loyal, weaken institutions, and make it harder to know what’s true.

The costs you feel, and the costs you don’t see

Some of the damage this year came in plain sight. Trade policy and tariffs are a good example. You don’t need a spreadsheet to understand the outcome when you make imports more expensive. Prices rise, uncertainty grows, and regular people get stuck with the tab.

But there’s another kind of cost that matters just as much, and it doesn’t show up on a receipt.

It’s the cost of attacking information itself.

Throughout 2025, we have seen escalating efforts to punish, intimidate, or sideline the press. Reporters who ask questions that Trump doesn’t like get labeled “fake news.” Legitimate scrutiny gets treated like sabotage. He attacks journalists personally, demands praise, and publicly pressures outlets to fall in line. When someone won’t play along, he calls for firings, blacklists, and consequences.

This is not just noise. It’s conditioning. The message is simple: criticize the president and you will be targeted. Over time, that changes behavior. People begin to self-censor, outlets soften coverage, and the public ends up paying the price in the form of less accountability and more propaganda.

A free press is supposed to be annoying. They are supposed to ask tough questions and gain clarity on complex issues. That is the job. If you make journalism risky enough, expensive enough, and miserable enough, fewer people do it. The reporting thins out, the questions stop, the public gets more noise with less verification, and that is when propaganda starts to feel like “just another opinion,” which is exactly the point.

Why independent media matters more than ever

Independent media is the part of the ecosystem that still asks the annoying questions. It is not owned by the people it covers. It is not managed by a corporate parent that worries about protecting relationships. Shows like ours can plainly say, “No, that’s not true,” without running it past a corporate parent first.

The David Pakman Show is directly supported by viewers and listeners like you. Sure, they can still try to sue us, silence us, or even revoke my naturalized citizenship. But we don’t answer to billion-dollar boardrooms.

We answer to you.

If you’ve ever thought, “I just want someone to keep saying what needs to be said,” that’s us. But we can’t keep doing it without your support.

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2025 wasn’t just a year of political chaos; it was a stress test for institutions, norms, and for the idea that truth can survive without protection.

Independent media is part of that protection.

So if you value it, support it however you can. Ours or anyone else’s. The important thing is that it exists.

We made it through 2025.

Let’s not let 2026 be the year we stop paying attention.

— David

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