from the if-you-can’t-beat-’em,-buy-’em dept
Trump’s proper wing billionaire pal Larry Ellison (and his nepobaby son, David) lately acquired CBS and certain co-ownership of TikTok. Like Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, the purpose isn’t actually refined: wealthy, thin-skinned proper wingers need to personal the whole lot of U.S. new and outdated media, then convert it into a large propaganda and lazy infotainment bullhorn that blows smoke up their asses.
The Ellisons have since set their sights on Warner Brothers, CNN, and HBO. It received’t be low cost; it’s estimated that Larry and firm should pay upwards of $60 billion for the acquisition. The Trump administration has brazenly signaled that they’d very very like the Ellisons to succeed right here, partially to drive a dying cable information channel (CNN) to be even friendlier to Trump than it already is.
Whereas Ellison has some competing suitors with names like Comcast NBC Common and Netflix, the profitable bidder will want approval from the Trump DOJ and FCC. Understanding that they probably have a definite tactical benefit by way of corruption, Ellison and Trump look like already measuring the drapes, discussing programming adjustments (and CNN hirings and firings) that can please the president:
“Ellison usually speaks to connections on the White Home and in no less than one cellphone name engaged in a dialogue about presumably axing a few of the CNN hosts whom Donald Trump is alleged to detest, together with Erin Burnett and Brianna Keilar, the individuals stated.”
You may recall that through the first Trump administration, Trump tried very laborious to dump Time Warner (and CNN) to Rupert Murdoch, who labored behind the scenes to scuttle the AT&T Time Warner deal. Trump has repeatedly filed unsuccessful lawsuits towards CNN making an attempt to silence essential voices on the community. With these gambits having failed, shopping for and destroying CNN from the within is the subsequent step.
The nice irony is these networks that offend Trump weren’t precisely what you’d name bastions of hard-nosed journalism to start with. Beneath the possession of Trump fan David Zaslav, CNN is already know for flinging softball questions at Trump authoritarians, failing to problem apparent lies on air, and usually airing a form of secure, infotainment-centered pseudo-journalism.
However even that’s an excessive amount of essential pondering for America’s thinnest skinned billionaires.
Ellison is already laborious at work turning no matter was left of CNN right into a proper wing propaganda mill. If he acquires possession of TikTok and CNN as properly; the potential exists to create a propaganda empire that’s arguably bigger and far worse than Fox Information.
However given the current failures of efforts to dominate U.S. media by way of consolidation (once more, see AT&T) it’s additionally equally probably that this bizarre assortment of trolls and nepobabies merely creates a mountain of unsustainable debt and hubris crushed by the burden of its personal incompetent ambition.
Filed Beneath: cable television, consolidation, david ellison, donald trump, journalism, larry ellison, media, mergers, information, propaganda
Corporations: cnn, paramount, warner bros. discovery
