The article discusses the negative consequences of globalization in the new international arena that arose following the Great Recession of 2008 that enabled emerging economies such as China, Russia, and Angola to take center stage, reconfiguring power relations between Western and non-Western countries. As new global flows of capital in media industries have been emerging, it is relevant to consider how investors from autocratic political regimes with illiberal views on the media articulate with Western culture’s founding prerogatives of media and journalism. To do this, we singled out the Angola–Portugal relationship. Results show that the clientelistic dynamics in Portugal’s media system, enhanced by the economic crisis, facilitate the entrance of the Angolan capital, which, in turn, may perpetuate clientelism and drive the reversal of media democracy in the country.