Altercation: Will the Oligarchs Who Own the U.S. Media Save Democracy? Don't Bet on It. [View all]

[tenderfoot]

CNN’s move to the ‘center’ is more bad news for news the country can really use.

Ever since CNN’s new overlords at Warner Bros. Discovery chose to replace the corrupt, dishonest Jeff Zucker with the former talk show producer Chris Licht in its top job, the network has pushed the story line, begun by its principal investor, John Malone, that it is moving “back to the center” and away, as this overly gullible Guardian article argues, from its alleged leftist orientation. Its author quotes Licht saying, “We are truth-tellers, focused on informing, not alarming our viewers.”

:snip:

It should come as no surprise that the fellow who is driving this effort by CNN, John Malone, is both a billionaire and a right-wing ideologue. (He may also be the largest landowner in America.) He’s on the board of directors of the Cato Institute and not only donated $250,000 to Donald Trump’s inauguration, but his companies donated another $250,000. He told an interviewer: “Look, I think a lot of the things Trump has tried to do—identifying problems and trying to solve them—has been great,” though he voiced skepticism as to whether Trump was “the right guy to do it.” This position tracks closely with that of Elon Musk, who, poised to take over Twitter, and vastly overpaying for the privilege, recently said that he was leaning toward supporting Florida’s Gov. Ron DeSantis for president; a politician who, as a Republican consultant quoted by the Journal puts it, has “all the benefits of Trump without the baggage.” Musk, according to the Journal, explained that his support for Republicans was based on the “scrutiny from some Democrats against him and his companies, Tesla and rocket company SpaceX.”

Malone’s closest competition as America’s biggest landowner business is Jeff Bezos, the rabidly anti-union owner of The Washington Post, who is, coincidentally, also in competition with Musk for the crown of wealthiest guy in the world. Having a bad year but still active in the mega-billionaire posse is Mark Zuckerberg, principal owner of Facebook, who has also made repeatedly clear his fealty to pro-Trump Republicans and his reliance on the likes of billionaire pro-Trump right-wing ideologue Peter Thiel. And let’s not forget Rupert Murdoch, yet another rapacious billionaire who is possibly more responsible than any other person on the planet for purveying the baseless conspiracy theories that continue to poison not just our politics but those of the U.K., Australia, and many other nations (and who, if justice is to be done, Link to tweet
/photo/1" target="_blank">might just be forced to pay for a tiny part of it). And, oh, great news, there’s this TikTok guy, too, who apparently fits the mold perfectly.

Do you think we can expect that a mainstream media largely owned and operated by right-wing billionaires is going to save our democracy from the people who pursue the policies that ensure that they remain billionaires and pay virtually no taxes in doing so?

Well worth the read/listen... no paywall.

https://prospect.org/politics/altercation-will-the-oligarchs-who-own-the-us-media-save-democracy/