The longer we suffer the agony of the Trump administration and its assaults on governance, science, logic and basic decency, the more I become convinced that our current information environment is largely responsible. The enormous growth of online propaganda is partially to blame for the fact that 37% of Americans still tell pollsters they approve of Trump.
But the Internet isn’t the only culprit allowing MAGA and MAGA-adjacent folks to escape confrontations with reality. The party that holds the White House has a built-in information advantage, and Trump’s visceral need for attention–and his ability to command it– has made use of that advantage.
That said, I have become more concerned about the decline of what we think of as “mainstream” journalism.
Take the reporting about the administration’s refusal to fund SNAP. On the NBC evening news I watched, the lack of funding was attributed to the shutdown; there was absolutely NO reference to the fact that the administration was refusing to release funds that had been appropriated for precisely this purpose–to ensure ongoing funding of a critical program in cases of government shutdown.
That failure to explain the actual reason for the SNAP crisis is journalistic malpractice. It allows partisans to point fingers and distort the political conversation. In a very real sense, it’s participation in a lie.
NBC isn’t the only network or mainstream source to evade this reality, and the question is: why? Why are major networks and news sources “both siding” multiple reports rather than accurately reflecting the fact that one side is primarily responsible? Why are they normalizing so many aspects of a profoundly abnormal Trump administration?
One recent report from the American Prospect provides a chilling answer to that question. It involves Trump’s “stage-managing” the business of information.
Warner Bros. Discovery—which owns a movie studio, numerous cable networks (CNN, Discovery, TBS, TNT, HGTV, Cartoon Network, TCM), the pay-TV channel HBO, streaming service HBO Max, DC Comics, part of The CW network, part of Fandango, several gaming studios, some theme park in Madrid, and much more—has publicly announced that it is for sale. Several companies, including Comcast, Netflix, and Amazon, are sniffing around a purchase, but the one that’s clearly amped to acquire WBD is Paramount, fresh off of being acquired itself by David Ellison’s Skydance Media.
Ellison and his billionaire father have been moving to consolidate ownership of the mass media. Ellison’s Skydance Media has already taken control of CBS through its recent merger with Paramount Global. Reportedly, the Trump administration has vowed to block Comcast, Netflix or Amazon from buying WBD, and to facilitate its acquisition by Paramount. The Ellison family is a longtime Trump ally, while Comcast and Netflix “have angered the president with Saturday Night Live parodies or perceived wokeness; and these grievances are driving the discretionary application of law.”
Trump pays more attention to media mergers than other business combinations, as befits his obsession with how he is portrayed to the public. The Ellisons, who already have their hands on TikTok, would add CNN to CBS News, building out a right-leaning rival to Fox in old and new media. Doing so through a shotgun wedding with implicit (if not explicit) approvals is just deeply corrupt.
This wouldn’t be a slam-dunk: under the Clayton Act and new guidelines written by Biden antitrust officials, such a merger would trigger several structural presumptions of illegality. State attorneys general can use them and the relevant federal laws to block the merger–assuming the Supreme Court doesn’t put a corrupt thumb on the scale. But the very prospect of yet another merger, another consolidation of ownership of the media, should be a wake-up call.
There has already been far too much consolidation, too much transformation of journalism into just another business, where owners worry more about official reprisals for stepping out of line than providing first-rate reporting.
A study by the University of Chicago found that, in the last ten years, consolidation of America’s TV broadcasting has accelerated–that currently 40 percent of all local TV news stations are controlled by three conglomerates: Gray Television, Nexstar Media Group, and Sinclair Broadcast Group, each of which owns about 100 ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC stations –and that those stations operate in more than 80 percent of US media markets. The research found “weaker constraints on owners’ interference with editorial decisions, whether for purely economic or for political motives.”
No kidding.
Our would-be King wants to control the information we receive–and with the help of his billionaire friends/courtiers, he’s well on his way.
All true. And just wait until unregulated AI takes a full grip on the minds of the People.
The use of information is what turns an authoritarian regime into a totalitarian one. Authoritarians want to control what we do; totalitarians want to control what we think, and how perceive reality.
Welcome to Big Brother…
I wouldn’t waste my time on anything owned by the oligarchy in this country. They are simply NOT going to hold themselves accountable. I always check to see who is in control of the finances before I even waste my time reading their take on the news. NBC owned Trump and MSNBC simultaneously. That’s all I need to say a big NO.
I know Rupert Murdoch passed the torch to one of his sons, but I don’t expect much in the realm of change. Maybe he is planning on changing the vision of their right-wing propaganda channel, and that’s why the Ellisons are gobbling up the entertainment world. I mean, why do we need two right-wing media channels competing with each other?
Larry Ellison is a major player within the world of US Zionists. Israel is losing the propaganda war, and maybe it has backing there. We learned that Bill Ackman, another billionaire Zionist, was the major player behind Turning Point USA, which fed propaganda to young people. That entity is imploding, causing the donors to scatter.
The deregulation that has occurred over the past 40 years has caused significant problems for the media ecosystem, as well as for many other industries. The one thing Biden did right was hiring Lina Khan to seek antitrust regulation, and she was able to halt the process temporarily. However, she was let go immediately by Trump.
We have definitely reached a Gilded Age 2.0, so the Democrats need to break up all these monopolies and near monopolies. The point is to make the market free again if we want capitalism to function correctly. The question is, “Will the oligarchy-controlled politicians be allowed to break up the oligarchy?”
The media ecosystem needs to have regional and local control via ownership. We do not want national propaganda 24/7 when we need coverage of local issues by those familiar with small market experience.
“Our would-be King wants to control the information we receive–and with the help of his billionaire friends/courtiers, he’s well on his way.”
We are slaves to the media with little or no information as to who is ruling our thought processes. Brainwashing to the ultimate degree; we are now losing the ability to choose which media source we choose to follow as Trump narrows the choices to his scant mental level of understanding of anything. To complete washing our brains of freedom of thought he is deleting education sources and attempting to erase historical facts and sources. We have so far since January 20, 2025, been moved into his MAGA camp ruling our lives as Jews were moved into ghettos then on to concentration camps during the Holocaust.
What are the chances that election day November 4, 2025 is our version of the Warsaw, Poland Ghetto Uprising before they were, after their heroic efforts, been destroyed in totality? We have the numbers and the weapons of democracy, Rule of Law and the Constitution in our hands; but must put aside petty differences regarding our understanding of them and unite if we are to override the man who would be King and his court jesters.
This is not a Trump-specific issue, although he’s definitely a huge proponent. It’s fundamental to Project 2025 and to the Republican party. It’s Fascism 101.
Daily phone calls to the offices of our Representatives and Senators can serve as an important way to let them know that we aren’t falling for the right wing/Trump propaganda that they support. If enough citizens point out their complete lack of patriotism, integrity, basic human decency and backbone by choosing to ensure their own job security by supporting their oligarch donors’ demands instead of supporting policies and laws that are in the best interest of our country’s democracy and the constituents they claim to represent.
We have always had a mixed economy of both Capitalism and socialism.
Decisions about which services each means of production should provide need to be made by our government.
We have built our civilization beyond our capability to manage. Even in the best of times, there are just too many factors to consider and integrate. We are conceiving of technology that promises a solution, but to harness it, we have to act now, not wait until it’s too late.
None of us knows even a small fraction of what we all know, and so to apply human knowledge to our problems, collaboration by an unmanageable number of collaborators may be required.
The potential answer is AI, but the implementation across both ownership arrangements of the means of production may be one area too complex for achievable collaboration.
Are we going to be like a desperately thirsty person who finds a faucet with water but can’t figure out how to turn it on?
We will see.
Yet another example of the negative effects of deregulation. So far, we have deregulated:
Airlines for which we got fees on bags, seats, and anything provided by the airlines. The seats are generally cramped, with little room for me at 5’4″ in height and 115 lbs weight.. Imagine what it must be like for someone over 6’1′, 180 lbs!
Banks for which we got the housing bubble and the worst recession in our history. ‘Too big to fail,” was the cry of the bankers.I sometimes wonder what Obama might have done, if he hadn’t been so focused on the economic disaster he was given by the previous President. Yesterday, I mentioned that he had a four year deficit of 5.1 trillion dollars.. How much lower might that have been, if not for the recession
Airwaves: for which we got control of communication by monopolies, which seem to be in the hands of a few right winged narcissists.
So let’s go deregulate some more!
So what news source can we trust?
“Our would-be King wants to control the information we receive–and with the help of his billionaire friends/courtiers, he’s well on his way.” You couldn’t be more right, Sheila, Trump and his courtiers are following the autocrat’s playbook; they are good students when learning some information. Too selective, however, in what they choose to draw from. It’s an unrelenting assault on truth in any of the forums that seek to give truth space. It is ghastly to see ‘mainstream media’ edging so close to their competitors in their coverage… No need to ask why. You’ve answered the question: Look to the interests and preferences of the owners. Not for the money, for a change, but for the influence.
Linds,
I found journalists and small news entities on Substack that report the unobstructed truth. Once you find a handful, you’ll discover where they get their news, and so on. The expert on monopolies is Matt Stoller on Substack. He is a great resource. For international reports, I like The Duran for all things Europe.
Mehdi Hassan at Zeteo for all things Middle East. Gil Duran for Silicon Valley reports. Bill Kristol and the Bulwark for D.C. insights. Unlimited Hangout for Intel and surveillance.
That will get you started as most have newsletters daily…
Trust busting in many industries should be undertaken, for sure, but the media slide to “both-sidesism” and simply being scribes, repeating everything told them as if it was all factual began somewhere during the Reagan administration. He wasn’t a “Teflon President” without the help of the media.