Lisbon, May 10, 2026 (Lusa) – Innovation economist Francesca Bria said in an interview with Lusa that technology oligarchs are controlling the media, describing the profession as being under attack.
The UCL (University College London) professor, UN and European Union (EU) advisor, and one of Forbes' 50 most influential women in tech, began by saying that people must not be afraid.
"If we are scared, the far-right wins, because they always win by scaring people," said the economist, who spoke at this year's APDC Digital Business Congress in Lisbon.
She said that the media is the primary victim of the current system. "There is a high concentration of power in the media; the technology oligarchs are controlling the media now," she said.
This trend extends beyond digital media, Bria added. In the US, David Ellison "is now controlling Paramount and TikTok and all the media, really," she said.
David Ellison serves as CEO of Skydance Media and Paramount. He is part of a group of billionaire investors led by his father, Larry Ellison, who control TikTok's US operations.
"I think there is an attack on democratic media. There is also an attack on journalists and their capacity to produce content that is verified with sources to do real investigative journalistic work that can challenge power," she said.
Essentially, she said that "there is an attack on the idea of journalism in a democratic society."
Creating alternatives "means creating a space for democratic media to continue to exist," she said, stressing that democracy cannot exist without media independence.
Bria pointed to the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on intellectual work as a primary concern. She said that fake news, deepfakes, and AI-generated content exist without journalists being paid.
"Who is going to pay the journalists? This is a profession that's at stake," she acknowledges.
"We need to defend our critical minds, our capacity to think critically, but also to do this very important job," she said.
A journalist's importance goes beyond creating content, she said. It involves going into the field, speaking with people, maintaining sources, identifying relevant information, and challenging power.
"This is the fourth power," she concluded, citing Orson Welles' iconic film Citizen Kane as a portrayal of this reality.
Francesca Bria is an innovation economist and leads the EuroStack Initiative on Europe's Digital Sovereignty (www.euro-stack.info).
ALU/RYOL // ADB.
Lusa
