from the a-grand-performance-for-the-king dept
With the cowards at CBS/Paramount having paid their $16 million bribe to the King, Trump’s FCC has quickly ended its phony “investigation” into the media giant, and given its rubber stamp approval to the company’s $8 billion merger with Skydance (owned by Trump’s friends in the Ellison family).
In a press release, Trump FCC boss Brendan Carr does an absolutely adorable job pretending to be a serious adult regulator, insisting that the FCC is forcing the new CBS to adhere to numerous new requirements that serve the public interest (spoiler: they don’t).
Among them include a flimsy promise to reduce CBS bias in its journalism (read: be friendlier to Republicans and Trump), a promise to eliminate DEI (read: be more racist and sexist in company hiring and HR practices), and spend more money on local news networks (read: ensure more money flows to right wing propaganda outlets like Sinclair Broadcasting pretending to be local news).
Carr is not a good faith actor. He has absolutely no interest in fair and unbiased journalism. Every action he takes shows a violent disdain for real journalism, free speech, and the First Amendment that’s broadly despised by Republicans and Democrats alike.
But in his statement, he desperately wants you to think he’s “fixing” U.S. journalism by enabling yet more media consolidation and letting Trump’s billionaire friends buy CBS (which had already spent the last few years kissing Republican ass, apparently to no avail):
“In particular, Skydance has made written commitments to ensure that the new company’s programming embodies a diversity of viewpoints from across the political and ideological spectrum. Skydance will also adopt measures that can root out the bias that has undermined trust in the national news media. These commitments, if implemented, would enable CBS to operate in the public interest and focus on fair, unbiased, and fact-based coverage.”
It’s ironic that Republicans spent decades whining about the “Fairness Doctrine,” long-discarded FCC rules requiring something vaguely resembling balance in broadcast news coverage, but then turn around and embrace something like this, feebly pretending that government can and should solve “media bias.”
The inconsistency is because this is all performance by radical authoritarians. These conditions are all meaningless, and this isn’t about “restoring trust in news”; it’s about waging an information war on informed consensus and anybody that doesn’t agree with right wing ideology.
CBS is being purchased by Larry Ellison and his son David, who are close friends of Trump. They are making it very clear they’re going to buy CBS, hire some right-wing bullshit artist like Bari Weiss to “shape daily news coverage,” and turn the CBS News division into a feckless simulacrum of real journalism in service to affluent right wingers. Much like what’s happening at places like CNN and the Washington Post.
The Ellison family is also likely first in line to buy TikTok, if it’s ever actually sold, which could be integrated to create an even larger and more potent and modernized Republican messaging machine (assuming Larry Ellison’s brunchlord nepobaby son has any competency, which is not guaranteed).
This is part of a not particularly subtle gambit by America’s right wing oligarchs to hollow out what’s left of U.S. media, and turn it into a sorry mash of lazy infotainment, corporate earlobe nibbling, and right wing propaganda. While simultaneously insisting, with a straight face, that they’re eliminating media bias, restoring trust in journalism, and protecting free speech.
If you buy any of it, for even a second, we have some amazing new supplements filled with rat shit and sawdust that will do wonders for your complexion.
Filed Under: authoritarians, bias, brendan carr, disinformation, donald trump, fairness doctrine, fcc, media bias, media consolidation, propaganda
Companies: cbs, paramount, skydance
