As Donald Trump sours on Rupert Murdoch, another media reptile emerges from the swamp.
It doesn’t matter that Murdoch and Fox News had to pay a billion dollars in the US to their victims of the stolen election lie. It doesn’t matter that Elon Musk runs a global social media platform awash with frenzied Nazi propaganda. The rise of the corrosive hard-right disinformation mega-networks continues to set its cracking pace. Now there’s a new player.
In January, on his first full day as US president, Trump welcomed some of his tech-bro mates to a White House press conference to introduce an AI project called Stargate. As mega-billionaire Larry Ellison stood alongside, Trump rolled out the compliments to the world’s second-richest man and Republican donor:
“[His skills are] well beyond technology … [He’s] the CEO of everything. An amazing man and an amazing business person.”
It was the sort of gush once reserved for the likes of Murdoch. But last week it was Ellison who “quietly became the most powerful man in America”.
Son of a gun
Six months on from that January press conference, Ellison is controlling shareholder of Paramount Global and overlord of CBS, bankrolling his son’s company Skydance in an $8bn merger which just last week was approved by the Trump administration. And the Orange Don made the parties dance for it. Paramount paid him $16m to settle a court case widely regarded as impossible for Trump to win after the president complained about a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris. Paramount described the nuisance lawsuit as “completely without merit” but gave him the money anyway, triggering agitation and turmoil among CBS reporters who would normally hunt down the grifters behind this sort of sting.
60 Minutes is internationally regarded as a “hallowed bastion of investigative journalism”. That all counted for nothing when its corporate owner wanted to offload its holdings and pay off a corrupt president to get the job done.
The integrity breach triggered the resignation of highly respected executive producer Bill Owens who said he’d lost the independence that honest journalism requires. CBS News chief Wendy McMahon walked soon after. Others spoke out. Amid the uproar the acclaimed The Late Show host Stephen Colbert described the payment as a “big fat bribe”. Three days later Paramount axed the show citing “financial reasons”.
Balance of power
Be assured there’ll be no need to rein in any bleeding heart liberal excesses of Ellison who plans a “wholesale transformation” of CBS. That appears to involve turning it into a sort of Fox News 2.0, another corrosive disinformation arm dedicated to oiling up to Trump.
While negotiating the merger with the Trump-appointed regulator heading up the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Skydance CEO David Ellison pledged to eliminate all diversity and equity programming at Paramount and hire an ombudsman to ensure news coverage is free of “ideological bias”. We know now that that is Trump speak for glowing news coverage about him, and no black people, disabled people, gay people or ugly women.
Chillingly, Trump claims CBS has agreed to run $20 million worth of “public service announcements” consistent with his ideological beliefs. That’s unconfirmed, but if true expect wall-to-wall pro-MAGA advertising on the once mighty CBS.
Knee deep in …
Sadly ignored in Trump’s Paramount-Skydance shakedown is the rule of law. Regulatory decisions are not allowed in order to accommodate the greed or the vanities of a president. But times have changed. Democrat Senator Elizabeth Warren described the stench on X:
”This reeks of corruption.”
Lone Democrat FCC commissioner Anna Gomez criticised the decision to approve the Paramount-Skydance sale and the overreach of its demands. In a statement she wrote:
“Once again this agency is undermining legitimate efforts to combat discrimination and expand opportunity by overstepping its authority and intervening in employment matters reserved for other government entities with proper jurisdiction … Even more alarming, it is now imposing never before seen controls over newsroom decisions and editorial judgment, in direct violation of the First Amendment and the law.”
No matter. The fascist bulldozer rolls on. Authorities who should hold Trump to account bend the knee in fear. Those who stand up are hounded and terrorised as he gorges on taxpayer-funded instruments of state to intimidate and prosecute vendettas.
A dark day
And what will be the implications for Network 10 in Australia, also owned by Paramount? Can we expect the home of Neighbours and MasterChef will morph into a creepy Sky after dark? Running talking points from Pauline Hanson, Barnaby Joyce and Ralph Babet alongside shrill commentating from wild-eyed political crackpots? Watch this space.
To state the obvious, self-interested, violent sex predators rarely act in the public interest. Nor do their obscenely wealthy enablers. It’s a portrait of power that revolts many Australians and why they fight ferociously when the fossil-fuel-funded Liberal-Nationals and their mates from One Nation and the Murdoch press come after the ABC with baseball bats.
Meanwhile, across the Pacific, another US domino falls: CBS News brought to you by MAGA.
Another voice that stood against tyrannical authoritarianism is silenced by the nightmare existential threat of our time — a corrupt president and a billionaire with a fistful of dollars. Goodbye once great CBS. You served us well.
And here I thought the left controlled the media. Was I lied to?
You evidently was not taking much notice, just letting this right wing crap wash over you. Happy I suppose in the thought its in the paper so it must be true. Well welcome to reality.
The left has never controlled the media. They understand the need for democratic decisions. It has always been the right – even in regards to the ABC.
Someone needs to stand up to this fake tanned bully! He’s nothing but a mongrel of the highest order.
Fascism doesn’t shout as it enters, it comes with a whisper to the uninformed.
Well said thank you
The problem with Trump not succeeding at his second attempt at becoming president is that he has had 4 more years to plan
So true. However the fact remains that approx 32% of eligible voters were for Trump, 31% for Harris (only a couple of million votes the difference) and the winner 37% – didn’t bother. Apathy is the real villain.
Farewell once great America. You served the world well. Once.
The entire history of the United States is one of empire and conquest, the only people served well are the rich and powerful.
In whatever direction you look – media, education, health, justice etc, the US is sick unto death. Impossible to imagine a recovery. Noam Chomsky saw this coming and has been warning us for years.
How can anyone take visiting America with any enthusiasm. Americans who voted for him and those who didn’t vote at all….have put their country on hold…I hope they can get it back?
All this graft is doomed to fail, with the Liar in Chief leading the way.Every time he opens his mouth he is setting traps with his unhinged outbursts, living up to the description of the ‘Mad King’.
The rot of the American experiment, which he and his enablers have accelerated, is following the same time honoured, but unlearned lessons of every failed empire in history.Corruption from within,unrestrained greed,a disregard for humanity, but above all a failure to learn from history.
Alas ,poor globe,I knew her well.
Seems a lot like the rat utopia experiment.
We are witnessing the demolition of the USA by a criminal con man who is a predator of the worst kind. It’s quite incredible. At least pinger people no longer watch TV or read newspapers and are more aware of these fake corrupt media. Well at least it is so in Australia. The only hope at the end is that Trumps health is visibly deteriorating and maybe he won’t last too much longer. There are others behind the scenes though
Re the Ten Network in Australia becoming a MAGA spigot…
Expect the worst and prepare for it.
Anything less will be a pleasant surprise!
America under Trump and his billionaire friends cohort has entered a death spiral. They can’t imagine that to be true but by the end of his term the USA will be a second world country rapidly heading to third world status. And this explosion of AI is only going to worsen the situation. Humankind is being made redundant. Trump plays his fiddle while America burns.
Yes Rod. Sadly, I have to agree. I fear that the response from US citizens will be acts of serious aggression and violence against each other and the world.
The writing was on the wall after the insurrection on January 6. There can be no way back unless this maggot is removed from office. He is the laughingstock of the world, a buffoon and a pitiful excuse for a human being. Sadly he has many like him in the good ol USA.
That overstepping of authority is applicable globally within Governments, Institutions, and financial markets.
The enablers are disdain for rule of law, bullying, harassment, blackmail and weak individuals who follow the pack.
So, whilst Trump continues to throw tantrums on a daily basis, the energy of change is powerful and unstoppable, and coming for all of them, including SCOTUS.
It would be useful to revisit the America’s Cup held in San Francisco a few years ago. I think the tech-bro cheated in the warm-up events, and that’s why NZ was given so many wins when the match racing began.