We have entered times when increasing inequality feeds growing distrust in social and political institutions. Together, these two tendencies – diminishing equality and a lack of trust – create a challenge to liberal democracy. The media have a pivotal role in these developments. On the one hand, they are central to democracy; on the other, they are part of the process of normalizing inequality. In the media, the growing gap between the haves and the have-nots is the “new normal”. Our conclusion is that, as the legal and regulatory instruments on the nation state level can no longer guarantee citizens’ democratic rights to information and communications, this must be the task of the European Union. We propose a radical democratic reform of the EU’s media and communication policy that would take citizens’ democratic rights to information and communications as a starting point. We propose five policy areas that are pertinent to democratic rights to communications: access to information, the availability of information, media competence, dialogue and privacy.