QOTD -- The Vichy Era Of CBS News And The Media

 

"... Larry and David Ellison are in the process of securing control over a vast swath of the American media landscape. The Paramount deal and the subsequent $7.7 billion overpay for the UFC to longtime Trump ally Ari Emanuel (seen ringside with Ellison, Trump, and Musk in April) set the stage for Oracle to go after the gigantic Warner Bros. Discovery company and gain control of U.S. TikTok at a fire-sale price. (Again, as with the Weiss acquisition, the Ellisons' steadfast support for Israel is not incidental, but rather a motivating factor.) It's a play for monopoly control. Buying off the president is the important part, but they still need to sell it.

"The Ellisons and the rest of the billionaire class don't need the aerodynamic drag of association with fringier right-wing stuff; they want the prestige and lubricity of affiliation with important, elite institutions. That's the value proposition of the Ivy-incubated, Wall Street Journal and New York Times veteran Weiss: obsequiousness to power and capital without any of the wacky stuff, the imprimatur of elite consensus unburdened by any inconvenient commitment to reporting on the business of powerful people. What does this look like in practical terms?  [snip]

"... Weiss has an insatiable metabolism for other people's anger, as she capably digests it into further proof of her claims to courageous truth-telling. Her new billionaire backers get an agent expert at turning people's ire toward other, softer targets—someone who can process it into fuel." -- Patrick Redford in Defector on the meaning of the oligarch Ellisons's naming of anti-woke crank Bari Weiss to be chief editor of the now- fatally- compromised CBS News -- now in its "Vichy Era."   With the Ellisons's acquisition of CBS News and Tik Tok (and potentially Warner Bros. Discovery), the Murdoch family's control of the WSJ and Fox "News," and Bezos's control of the Washington Post, we see the media is firmly lodged in the pocket of the billionaire class, to be run for the benefit of billionaires (and we're not even mentioning the right- wing companies that own the affiliate stations).