Comments on: World's Second Richest Man Preparing Cash Bid for CNN

World's Second Richest Man Preparing Cash Bid for CNN

subdee — Mon, 15 Sep 2025 09:41:37 -0800

Take something quite disturbing, which is the explicit fusing of the Republican Party apparatus and the corporate media. After Skydance bought Paramount, David Ellison [son of Larry Ellison] sought to make conservative Bari Weiss the ideological minder of CBS. Warner Bros. Discover owns the iconic CNN, which means this deal would put both CBS and CNN under the control of the Republican Party.

Related: Supreme court intervenes to allow the firing of FTC commissioner Rebecca Slaughter, overturning 90 years of legal precedent. In olden times, antitrust laws might have blocked this merger as Paramount and Warner Bro Discover are direct competitors in an already highly concentrated market. Previously: Skydance merger with Paramount/CBS allowed to go through in exchange for Paramount agreeing to bring CBS news into ideological alignment with the Trump administration, neutering 60 Minutes, and firing Stephen Colbert. The Wall Street Journal broke the story by focusing on a jump in stock price for both Skydance and Warner Bros Discovery.

By: subdee

subdee — Mon, 15 Sep 2025 09:43:02 -0800

marker -> market, sorry I'm on my lunch break...

By: seanmpuckett

seanmpuckett — Mon, 15 Sep 2025 09:51:35 -0800

Forget it, Jake. It's America.

By: wenestvedt

wenestvedt — Mon, 15 Sep 2025 10:02:22 -0800

God damn am I tired of rich people.

By: subdee

subdee — Mon, 15 Sep 2025 10:08:55 -0800

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.

By: Going To Maine

Going To Maine — Mon, 15 Sep 2025 10:23:46 -0800

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.

By: biffa

biffa — Mon, 15 Sep 2025 11:11:36 -0800

By: Going To Maine

Going To Maine — Mon, 15 Sep 2025 11:21:54 -0800

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

By: Smedly, Butlerian jihadi

Smedly, Butlerian jihadi — Mon, 15 Sep 2025 11:29:17 -0800

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.

By: lescour

lescour — Mon, 15 Sep 2025 11:35:58 -0800

In all seriousness I blame the billionaire group chats

By: seanmpuckett

seanmpuckett — Mon, 15 Sep 2025 11:59:28 -0800

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.

By: DirtyOldTown

DirtyOldTown — Mon, 15 Sep 2025 12:32:12 -0800

[warily, apologetically, knowing full well I say this annoyingly often, but STILL] Hungary.

By: flamk

flamk — Mon, 15 Sep 2025 12:58:50 -0800

Are we allowed to call it a class war yet?

By: EmpressCallipygos

EmpressCallipygos — Mon, 15 Sep 2025 13:23:00 -0800

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.

By: Didymus

Didymus — Mon, 15 Sep 2025 13:33:34 -0800

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"

By: Slackermagee

Slackermagee — Mon, 15 Sep 2025 13:37:09 -0800

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?

By: H. Roark

H. Roark — Mon, 15 Sep 2025 13:37:50 -0800

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.

By: DirtyOldTown

DirtyOldTown — Mon, 15 Sep 2025 13:48:01 -0800

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 Orbán. (Obviously all of this is because Soros was born Jewish.)

By: EmpressCallipygos

EmpressCallipygos — Mon, 15 Sep 2025 13:50:44 -0800

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!

By: Skwirl

Skwirl — Mon, 15 Sep 2025 15:51:57 -0800

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 Orbán playbook But yes, the lesson of Orbánization 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

By: No Climate -> No Food -> No Future

No Climate -> No Food -> No Future — Tue, 16 Sep 2025 05:50:40 -0800

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.

By: No Climate -> No Food -> No Future

No Climate -> No Food -> No Future — Tue, 16 Sep 2025 06:01:16 -0800

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.

By: mrgoat

mrgoat — Tue, 16 Sep 2025 10:08:02 -0800

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.

By: MattD

MattD — Tue, 16 Sep 2025 15:59:14 -0800

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.

By: Brandon Blatcher

Brandon Blatcher — Tue, 16 Sep 2025 16:32:31 -0800

[subdee: "marker -> market, sorry I'm on my lunch break..." Fixed! ]

By: subdee

subdee — Wed, 17 Sep 2025 10:10:18 -0800

Thanks Brandon! Rumor has it that Larry Ellison is also a candidate to buy TikTok. Gonna make William Hearst look like an amateur.