marker -> market, sorry I'm on my lunch break...
posted by subdee at 9:43 AM on September 15

Forget it, Jake. It¡¯s America.
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:51 AM on September 15 [11 favorites]

God damn am I tired of rich people.
posted by wenestvedt at 10:02 AM on September 15 [53 favorites]

I want to stress that this merger hasn't happened yet. Seems like the kind of thing that you could get a lot of celebrities to come out against, similarly to how a bunch came out in support of Colbert and got his firing on peoples' radars. Consolidation of the industry is bad for Hollywood unions and Hollywood unions (celebrities) still have some power. At the very least Americans should understand what's happening.
posted by subdee at 10:08 AM on September 15 [5 favorites]

To touch upon the Substack issue (again), this is of course a link to a paid episode of a… something by a lefty writer/podcaster, which can only be accessed by giving some money to a publisher who supports Nazis, talking about the potential takeover of some major television networks by Republican interests. It¡¯s bad all the way down.
posted by Going To Maine at 10:23 AM on September 15 [9 favorites]

Well I read all the links, didn't pay for any of them and none of them appeared to go to substack. So take it to MeTa, as you know you should have done in the first place, and aim to be clearer if you do.
posted by biffa at 11:11 AM on September 15 [7 favorites]

Well I read all the links, didn't pay for any of them and none of them appeared to go to substack. So take it to MeTa, as you know you should have done in the first place, and aim to be clearer if you do.

The Big Newsletter, Matt Stoller¡¯s newsletter, is hosted on Substack infrastructure. (If you click ¡°Subscribe¡±, this will be apparent, and the entire site design follows the general pattern of all Substack newsletters.) The post indeed isn¡¯t paywall-gated! I was confused by the big ol' banner advertising the paid access to the audio episode. I¡¯m not particularly interested in taking this to meta - I don¡¯t even really mind paywalled links on Metafilter itself. I was just thinkin¡¯ about how the whole system is, unfortunately, a mess
posted by Going To Maine at 11:21 AM on September 15 [5 favorites]

See also: Tik Tok sale. I'm sure it'll be fine.

The transformation of the American media landscape from a tacitly right wing one (where for example, conservative guests on the "Sunday Shows" outnumber liberal ones 2:1, etc, etc) to an explicitly, extremely orthodox one where only conformity with the party line is accepted has been mind-bogglingly swift. We are now in a place where you can get fired for merely observing fairly undeniable patterns of facts or quoting someone correctly -- if said actions result in Republicans looking bad. (Also, the "independent" platform that said journalist announces her firing on is demonstrably pro-nazi, ie. Substack.)

This kind of rapid change is something you see when it has been more or less in existence behind the scenes/strongly desired by ownership for quite some time.

If there is an upside, it is that maybe, hopefully, we can see some kind of grass roots independent media organizations level up in response. However, and much more likely, one of the next steps in a consolidating authoritarian regime is typically to arrest or extra-judiciously punish those who persist in speaking plainly about the world around them, especially if they successfully gain an audience or good reputation.

I am not optimistic about our chances at this time.
posted by Smedly, Butlerian jihadi at 11:29 AM on September 15 [18 favorites]

In all seriousness I blame the billionaire group chats
posted by lescour at 11:35 AM on September 15 [14 favorites]

The grimmest thing really is that in the old days of lords, peons and patronage, the lord wouldn't let you die in a ditch if you held a pitchfork for him at the street mob; fealty was reciprocal. But now, there are so many thousands of millions of people in the world, the billionaires just don't care. You can hold a pitchfork if you want to, but you'll still die in a ditch, because there's a thousand other idiots right behind you ready to grab your pitchfork out of your cold dead hands.

Yeah, it's pretty grim.
posted by seanmpuckett at 11:59 AM on September 15 [9 favorites]

[warily, apologetically, knowing full well I say this annoyingly often, but STILL]
Hungary.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:32 PM on September 15 [13 favorites]

Are we allowed to call it a class war yet?
posted by flamk at 12:58 PM on September 15 [5 favorites]

DOT - your mention of Hungary dovetails with George Soros, who's come under attack from Trump yet again; he says that he plans to investigate Soros and hopefully imprison him.

A part of me reads that and is thinking "bring it on" - as I suspect Soros and his team have some veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeery good lawyers, and veeeeeeeeeeeeery deep pockets to pay them.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:23 PM on September 15

I suspect Soros and his team have some veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeery good lawyers, and veeeeeeeeeeeeery deep pockets to pay them

the thrill of the big game hunt for these fucking bastards

you know what it would mean to these people, to "bring down Soros"
posted by Didymus at 1:33 PM on September 15 [1 favorite]

If they're bringing the anti-terrorism apparatus to bear (which they haven't mentioned outright but the details seem familiar) then George Soros may find the money not accessible. And he may find himself in a similar state. The conditions of which will be appealed to... three guesses for originating and final jurisdictions. Anyone? Bueller? ... Bueller?
posted by Slackermagee at 1:37 PM on September 15 [1 favorite]

Re: tik tok - the whole dialog now of getting this ¡°under American control¡± is so sketchy. Which American? If Soros wanted to make a bid would that be allowed? Is this somehow going to fall into trump media?

it¡¯s so unbelievably dark out there.
posted by H. Roark at 1:37 PM on September 15 [4 favorites]

The right's insistence that George Soros and his ~$7bn give him unseemly influence on world politics is so weird considering that Elon Musk has ~$460bn, around 12x more than Soros ever had at any point. Musk's wealth though is apparently NBD, even when he openly seeks to influence elections with cash payments or temporarily assumes control of government finances.

Yes, Soros has donated a lot of what he had, and maybe some of it gives him some influence. But he's donated it to lots of causes. Some are political, But he also pays for lots of Hungarian kids to attend university, including (and this is true, you can look it up) Viktor Orb¨¢n.

(Obviously all of this is because Soros was born Jewish.)
posted by DirtyOldTown at 1:48 PM on September 15 [12 favorites]

If they're bringing the anti-terrorism apparatus to bear (which they haven't mentioned outright but the details seem familiar) then George Soros may find the money not accessible. And he may find himself in a similar state.

Okay, maybe I've been assuming Soros likely has his funds in multiple jurisdictions, so even if some of the US funding is blocked, he can still access other avenues.

Or, hell, maybe the universe is going to get really weird on us and Elon would team up with Soros in a sort of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" move.

And as long as I'm dreaming I'd also like a pony!
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:50 PM on September 15 [1 favorite]

Considering that I¡¯m one of those kids with a Soros degree from Central European University, I was kind of hoping that I¡¯d be the first one to point out how this is the Orb¨¢n playbook

But yes, the lesson of Orb¨¢nization is that if you control the media then you don¡¯t necessarily have to stuff the ballot box. Every disaster that you create will be pinned on your political enemies. Try explaining to Grandpa that CNN is right wing now
posted by Skwirl at 3:51 PM on September 15 [18 favorites]

Small correction: "which means this deal would put both CBS and CNN under the control of the Republican Party." Empahsis mine.

They were already under the ownership, management and editorial control of replublicans. Look up the people who ran/run those shops, their donations, their decisions. Heck, look at how they slanted coverage. 2015-2016 might be a good exemplar. Your owners and masters sometimes play good-cop/bad-cop. Don't be fooled, even the good shepard eats lamb and wears hide.
posted by No Climate -> No Food -> No Future at 5:50 AM on September 16 [5 favorites]

Thats not to say this isn't another tightening of the wratchet strap.

The curtain of control, censorship and manipulation is indeed tightening. We communicate over devices we dont control, can't secure, mostly don't even understand. Where we are drowned with millions of real voices, amplified and distorted and then augmented with unlimited artificial ones. Smedly Butlerian Jihad's userhandle is right. slip the saddle and cut the lines.
posted by No Climate -> No Food -> No Future at 6:01 AM on September 16 [1 favorite]

They were already under the ownership, management and editorial control of replublicans.

Under republican control, and at the same time, I've had more than one republican claim that CNN is a horrible, left wing communist lying news source. What a racket - set up a very right wing news channel, then have your other, crazily-more-right-wing news channel attack them. Moving the overton window is a lot easier when you control both sills, the storm shutters, and own the glass factory.
posted by mrgoat at 10:08 AM on September 16 [12 favorites]

CNN and CBS News moving to right wing would let NBC move to a centrist stance and MSNBC move to the center left abandoned by CNN ¡­ probably what the Roberts would like to do in any event. Could set up sale of MSNBC to New York Times Co which could work out nicely. Will be interesting to see how Disney pivots ABC News.
posted by MattD at 3:59 PM on September 16

Thanks Brandon!

Rumor has it that Larry Ellison is also a candidate to buy TikTok. Gonna make William Hearst look like an amateur.
posted by subdee at 10:10 AM on September 17

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