With Trump’s Bribe Paid, His Lackey FCC Quickly Rubber Stamps CBS Merger
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
Comments on “With Trump’s Bribe Paid, His Lackey FCC Quickly Rubber Stamps CBS Merger”
What info?
Larry Ellison once told his biographer that he doesn’t drink or do drugs because “I can’t stand anything that clouds my mind.”
Boy, he sure did conspicuously leave “Money” and “Power” off that list…
Well, at least there may be a ray of hope in this merger mess. Trump is apparently losing it over the latest episode of South Park. It is an over-the-top roast.
Re:
Good. The madder he gets, the more likely he is to showcase his insanity.
Re: Re:
Oh, he does not need to be mad to showcase his insanity, but it will drive him to do even more stupid shit.
Re:
The reaction is kind of hilarious, in that the White House released a statement: “This show hasn’t been relevant for over 20 years […]”. And it goes on and on—as one does not do about a truly irrelevant matter—also claiming the episode used “uninspired ideas in a desperate attempt for attention”, exactly what the statement is giving them. That’d make a great tagline for the show.
The weird thing is, unlike the White House, I think the show actually was mostly irrelevant. This “in bed with Satan” gag is a re-used 26-year-old joke from their 1999 movie (in which Saddam Hussein was Satan’s abusive lover). Have all the White House press people who’d heard of Barbra Streisand been fired, or did Trump just insist on a public response?
Oh, get this item in Carr’s little masturbatory note:
“Ombudsman” isn’t the right word. A better one would be “zampolit.” (Russian: “political officer”)
So… bets on if the approval sticks after that South Park episode the day the deal was “approved”?
Wow!
I have more respect for Stormy Daniels than for CBS.
At least she got paid (twice) for her work…