Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Warns Loss Of Journalists Will Send Democracy Crumbling

Social media queen Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) used her Twitter platform to defend journalists amid a series of sweeping layoffs across the media industry.

In a Saturday tweet, the freshman congresswoman cautioned that “the biggest threats to journalism right now are tech monopolies & concentration of ownership,” advocating for “high-quality journalism.”

Without a diversity of news outlets, she warned, “our democracy will continue to crumble.”

The tweet comes in the wake of recent cutbacks at HuffPost, Yahoo, AOL, BuzzFeed and a handful of Gannett-owned newspapers ― all told, some 1,000 workers lost their jobs.

Facebook and Google have been widely blamed for monopolizing online advertising, which critics have pointed to as a major handicap to digital news organizations trying to turn a profit to stay afloat.

In a follow-up tweet, Ocasio-Cortez doubled down on her defense of journalists, arguing the profession “will only die if we choose not to fight for it ― and if journalism dies, our democracy will, too.”