Appointment of Bari Weiss confirms shift to the right of mainstream media

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Trumpism wants to capture your attention. And it won’t hesitate to colonize, with the approval of its leader, all the world’s main information outlets, streaming media and video game platforms. Emerging from the effervescent magma of the MAGA universe, a group of powerful businessmen are in orbit around Trump, fattening his businesses and helping him expand the reach of his ultraconservative rhetoric.

The latest example of this corporate concentration movement is Paramount Skydance’s purchase of The Free Press, a conservative-leaning digital media outlet, for approximately $150 million, and its appointment of Bari Weiss, the outlet’s controversial and self-declared anti-woke director, as editor-in-chief of CBS News. The move, confirmed this Monday, comes a week after Trump ordered the creation of a U.S. version of TikTok, which will be managed by like-minded businesspeople.

Weiss, a former opinion editor at The New York Times, is highly critical of traditional media and the Democratic Party. Her appointment heralds an ideological shift at the prestigious TV network, one of the symbols of American journalism and home of the legendary Walter Cronkite, considered a beacon of journalistic objectivity. This latest move highlights the fragility of the communication and entertainment industry, which is in the crosshairs of Trumpist entrepreneurs seeking to take advantage of the favorable winds of political favor.

The case of Paramount Skydance is paradigmatic. Larry Ellison, the second wealthiest person in the world and a declared Trump supporter, lent his son David the resources this summer to launch a strike against the audiovisual and media industry. David Ellison, a relatively unsuccessful actor and Hollywood producer known for films such as the Mission: Impossible saga and Top Gun: Maverick, controlled Skydance, a prosperous film and television production company, but modest in comparison to other giants in the sector. With his father’s backing, he managed to close a deal on a major player, Paramount, in July, following lengthy negotiations. The $8 billion deal creates an empire with popular channels such as CBS, MTV, Nickelodeon and Comedy Central. With this purchase, the Ellisons have become one of the most important media mogul families in the world, heading a conglomerate of media outlets, entertainment platforms and the Hollywood industry.

Larry Ellison, founder of Oracle, one of the world’s largest technology companies, is the true architect of the movement. He is a regular donor to Trump’s election campaigns and his fortune is valued at around $350 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which regulates the broadcasting industry in the United States, took nearly 250 days to approve the merger between the two companies. It did so shortly after Paramount paid $16 million to settle a lawsuit filed by Trump, who accused the network of harming him over an edited interview with Kamala Harris, his opponent in the last election.

The FCC’s authorization, chaired by Brendan Carr, came after David Ellison pledged that the network’s editorial decisions would “reflect the diverse ideological perspectives of American viewers.” Skydance also agreed to cancel all of the group’s diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, according to the company’s letter to the commission defending the deal. Carr also pressured ABC a couple of weeks ago to suspend another late-night comedian, Jimmy Kimmel.

While the companies were finalizing the details of the merger, CBS decided not to renew its star late-night host, Stephen Colbert, a comedian who criticized the current White House’s policies and parodied Trump. The company defended the show’s cancellation on financial grounds, but many analysts linked his dismissal to pressure from the Republican administration.

Not content with creating one of the largest media empires in history, Larry Ellison has now set his sights on Warner Brothers Discovery, which controls the news network CNN, HBO, as well as the Harry Potter, Superman, and Looney Tunes film series, among others. If confirmed, the merger of Paramount and Warner would create a giant that would compete with Disney and Netflix, the leaders in broadcast production.

The prestigious journalist and former CBS anchor Dan Rather warned a couple of weeks ago that Americans “have to be concerned about the consolidation of huge billionaires getting control of nearly all of the major news outlets.” The progressive-leaning media watchdog group FAIR notes: “The possibility of the Ellisons taking over both CBS and CNN, as well as controlling a major social media network like TikTok, would be dangerous for democracy. And given their closeness to the Trump regime, that seems to be the point.“

Larry Ellison has practically doubled his fortune in the 10 months since Trump returned to the White House thanks to Oracle’s stock market performance. But he’s not content with that. He’s also on the verge of taking control of the influential social media platform TikTok, in a deal that still casts more shadows than light. Along with the Murdoch family, owners of NewsCorp and Fox News, he is one of the investors in the new American version of TikTok.

A report from the Pew Research Center concludes that 20% of American adults regularly get their news on TikTok. News consumption on this video platform has grown more than anywhere else over the past five years. “Tik Tok has become a popular news source for young people: 43% of adults under 30 say they regularly read news there, up from 9% in 2020,” the study notes.

Trust in the media

Political polarization and corporate ventures that undermine media independence are damaging their reputation. The latest Gallup poll on Americans’ trust in mainstream media, released this week, reveals a new low: only 28% of respondents admit to feeling there is a diverse and sufficient choice of newspapers, television, and radio stations, three points less than last year’s survey and 12 points less than five years ago.

“Larry and David Ellison are becoming mini-Murdochs, media moguls who are taking over CBS and installing right-wing management there, and are likely to soon take over CNN, along with TikTok,” notes Jeff Jarvis, a media analyst and author of The Gutenberg Parenthesis. “After excluding dissident and liberal family members from News Corp. and Fox, Rupert and Lachlan have consolidated control of Fox and The Wall Street Journal to remain organs of the far right, while also assuming a role in TikTok,” the analyst reflects in statements to EL PAÍS.

The latest right-wing movements in the mainstream press are following the path of The Washington Post, owned by Jeff Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon. During the election campaign between Trump and Harris, Bezos asked the paper not to take editorial positions contrary to the paper’s tradition. A few weeks after Trump’s inauguration, Bezos sent a letter to his employees informing them of a change in the Opinion section: The Post would now prioritize personal freedoms and the free market.

As if that weren’t enough, Elon Musk has launched a campaign against Netflix. Last Wednesday, he posted on his social media platform X: “Cancel Netflix for the health of your kids,” while accusing the streaming platform of promoting a “progressive transgender agenda.” The broadcast company is receiving numerous criticisms from the MAGA community for promoting an ideology that doesn’t sufficiently defend white people.

Another of the most notable cases occurred this week with the announcement of the purchase by a group of businessmen of the popular video game company Electronics Arts (EA) for approximately €47 billion.

Affinity Partners, the fund founded by Jared Khusner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, is among the buyers of the company that produces the world’s biggest video game franchise, such as the best-selling FIFA, now known as FC26, F1, Madden NFL, and the popular Battlefield and Sims series. Kushner has played a leading role due to his ties to Saudi Arabia’s public investment fund, which also participated in the transaction, considered one of the largest acquisitions of a listed company in history.

Traditional media, social media, the Hollywood industry, and the video game industry. Trump-supporting entrepreneurs want to control the narrative in every place where citizens get their information and entertainment.

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