QOTD: Oligarch Control Of The Media

 

Ben Rhodes, former Obama White House strategist, on MSNBC looking at the suppression of free speech by the Malignant Fascist and his oligarch backers:

"Some people see this and they think, well, you know, it's just one TV show. It's just Stephen Colbert. It's just Jimmy Kimmel. It's just late-night. What you have to see, it is a part of a concerted strategy where not only do you have pro-Trump oligarchs consolidating control of the media, and frankly, that's what they are. I mean ... if we were talking about Russia, we're talking about Hungary, if we're talking about Turkey, you're talking about government-associated oligarchs, wealthy people with interests before the government buying up the media, because that's one way to retain favor with the leader.

"But also really importantly, it's the example that is set. It's not just about what Jimmy Kimmel or Stephen Colbert said. It's the fact that they basically got axed for their speech that is a message to every other broadcaster on every other medium in this country, that if you say something the leader doesn't like, you're probably at risk of getting axed. [snip]

"This is not just cancel culture, it's way beyond that. It's trying to enforce, essentially, an ideological test on the broad-based news media that reaches the vast majority of Americans, so that the only content they're seeing is, essentially, ideologically aligned with whatever Trump and his FCC director and a small group of people around him think that's what's happening."  (our emphasis)

We've seen the recent trend with right wing oligarchs buying up social media platforms (Elon Musk), newspapers (Jeff Bezos and Patrick Soon-Shiong), and broadcast media (David Ellison). Right-wing media corporations like Nexstar Media Group and Sinclair Broadcast Group and others laid the groundwork over the past two decades to tilt their broadcast affiliates to the right. Others, with their bottom line in mind like Meta / Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg, are going with the MAGA flow. We need to remember them when the political tables are turned.

BONUS:  Trial attorney specializing in First Amendment defense Sabrina Haake on the Kimmel case and the First Amendment --

At first blush, it looks as if Kimmel has no First A claim because Kimmel is a private party working for a private company, and the First Amendment does not protect private speech. However, his employer, ABC is subject to regulation by the FCC. It has been the law for decades that under the First Amendment, government agencies cannot coerce a private employer to restrict, censure or control someone's speech by threatening legal action. When an FCC official like Chairman Carr threatens a broadcast network for political speech he doesn’t like, he is using government resources to coerce silence, a clear violation of the First Amendment.

The First Amendment prohibits the government from censoring or threatening private media outlets for political speech, because threats of government sanction, retribution or punishment has a direct chilling effect on that speech. Just last year the Supreme Court ruled in National Rifle Association v. Vullo that government officials cannot use coercive tactics to suppress disfavored speech, stressing that government officials cannot achieve indirect censorship by threatening private companies (like ABC) to punish certain viewpoints (like Kimmel’s).

The FCC cannot punish broadcasters that disparage Trump, or use its authority to pressure private employers to suppress objectionable opinions. The Supreme Court has ruled consistently that using coercive tactics to suppress disfavored views is unconstitutional censorship, even if the government doesn't directly target the speaker, but, as here, targets his employer by threatening their FCC license.  

Here's hoping Kimmel sues. If Carr is going to run the FCC, he ought to learn some First Amendment basics, and answering Kimmel’s complaint will make him a nice tutorial...(our emphasis)

We hope he sues, too.