Hostility To Free Speech

This business deal in the media is so convoluted - most likely by design - that I had to consult AI to understand it.

The bottom line is this: Paramount, which recently merged with Skydance with the blessing of federal non-regulators and owns CBS, is pursuing a hostile, all-cash bid in December 2025 to buy all of Warner Brothers-Discovery (WBD), for $30 per share, to prevent Netflix's offer for WBD's studio and streaming assets.  The deal not only has the support of Donald Trump but also his son-in-law Jared Kushner; the Plastic Man is providing funding for the possible Paramount/Skydance deal from interests in the Middle East, as well as support from MBS - I don't mean the Mutual Broadcasting System, which went off the air over a quarter century ago.   

Paramount claims that the acquisition of  WBD would mean "more content, better linear networks (CBS and CNN), and significant cost savings," while a Netflix takeover of WBD would mostly focus on streaming.  Paramount, by contrast, is apparently promising miracles.

When a media conglomerate promises miracles, just remember - Jesus is the only person who can promise a miracle and deliver.

Paramount doesn't want to control WBD to provide more and better content.  It wants to take over as many media outlets and make them as Trump-friendly as possible.  Larry Ellison, who runs Paramount, and his son David want to turn CNN into a mouthpiece for Trump (although, to be honest, many CNN anchors appear to be auditioning to be Trump mouthpieces already) and do to CNN what Bari Weiss is doing to CBS News - make it an outlet for government-friendly spin, lightweight features, and whatever Weiss calls "the fucking news."  Now she might get to perform the act of fucking CNN.  And with so many broadcast and entertainment media under one umbrella, the Ellison family can and would make sure that nothing that could actually inform or enlighten folks gets through.

The good news is that there is still freedom of the press in These States.  The bad news is that the corporate media - already vacuous and intellectually bankrupt - is seeing to it that only a handful of rich people actually own the press.  Freedom of speech?   You can speak out, good luck if anyone hears you.  Heck, you can write a letter to the editor of whatever newspapers and magazines are still putting out print editions, but that doesn't mean it will be published.  And if you speak out against the Saudis through a possible Ellison-owned media establishment - well, goo luck, you're going to need it. 

Knowyour rights in These States/  just be extremely careful how to use them.

Idle Weiss

Diversity, equity and inclusion are essential to giving people who are not straight, white, male or Christian representation.  It's a way that non-heterosexuals, women, and Jews get a seat at the table.

But after seeing noted non-heterosexual Jewish female journalist Bari Weiss take over CBS News as editor-in-chief, even the most die-hard progressive might want to reconsider DEI.

Weiss is a smart-ass conservative opinion writer who, in addition to, ironically, opposing DEI, is against "wokeness" (formerly called common decency), is tolerant of white people appropriating cultural touchstones of racial minorities, does not believe that a credible rape accusation should be a barrier to public office, and is also a staunch Zionist, believing that the Palestinians ought to just step aside and let Israel take over the Holy Land.  Her stewardship of CBS News means more favorable coverage of the Israeli government's Gaza policy (imagine an anti-Catholic Beacon Hill WASP as editor-in-chief of the Boston Globe during the Troubles in Ulster and you get the idea), more room for incendiary commentary on programs like "Face the Nation," and a general disregard for stories that might present the country's leaders in an unfavorable light.

Weiss is best known as an opinion-editorial woman, having been an op-ed editor at both the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.  She caused many a stir in the latter role, where she not only promoted her own right-leaning opinions but also defended in 2020 an op-ed column from Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) that advocated the use of military force against people protesting the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.  Weiss resigned from the Times, as did her boss, op-ed editor James Bennet, brother of Senator Michael Bennet (D-CO).  Weiss then went on to found Free Press, a right-leaning online publication that, among other things, has questioned COVID lockdowns and sex-affirming health-care procedures.  A huge success after only three short years, Free Press was just recently bought by CBS owner Paramount for $150 million, making Weiss and her cofounders - her sister and her wife - rich women, and Weiss has found common cause with Paramount CEO David Ellison, himself a rich guy, to recast CBS News as they see fit.  

They will say it's not about money.  But as H.L. Mencken once said, that's exactly what people say when it is about money.

It's certainly not about relevant experience.  Weiss is taking over a news organization that involves gathering stories on current events and presenting them on television.  Weiss has no experience in either news gathering or TV,  and the sight of such a politically polarizing provocateur taking over the house that Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather built and remodeling it into a faux-opulent McMansion is enough to make real news junkies want to vomit.  At least Murrow and Cronkite aren't around to see this; Rather, at 94, isn't so lucky.

Weiss says that her mission is to restore straight reporting with minimal editorializing, keeping what editorializing there is evenly balanced between both sides - forgetting that Murrow once said that sometimes there is no other side, like in Gaza where Israel has no defense of its atrocities.   But media critics are not fooled.  "Like [Elon] Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, the deal can be understood as part of a broader elite project to smudge the lenses through which many people see the world," wrote the Defector's Patrick Redford of Weiss's promotion. "By installing Weiss, the richest people in the world have taken another step toward ushering in the toothless, acquiescent future of mainstream media they've always wanted."

Which, of course, jibes nicely with the recent merger between Paramount and Skydance that the current regime in Washington approved  - and the new ombudsman's position at CBS to make sure the regime gets a - ahem - fair shake.

So far, as the 2025-26 television season is getting underway, "60 Minutes" hasn't been terribly affected by CBS News's decline, and it likely has plenty of stories filed and ready to air before Weiss puts her stamp on the network's news division.  But in the long term, I don't hold out much hope, and I am speaking as someone who has abandoned legacy broadcasting so thoroughly that "60 Minutes" is the only program I still watch on television.

Gimme A Minute

The fifty-seventh season of "60 Minutes" ended this evening, and the reporters for the news-magazine show - and yes, Lesley Stahl will be back - are already working on stories for a fifty-eighth season starting in September.  The most astonishing thing about another season of "60 Minutes" is that there will be one. 

"60 Minutes" has been one of the few news programs on American television which has taken a critical eye to the Trump regime, with stories about Trump's migrant policy and Elon Musk's "Department" of  "Government Efficiency."  Given all that, you'd think "60 Minutes" has the complete trust and confidence of CBS's corporate bosses.

You'd think wrong.  While "60 Minutes" hasn't had any of its stories censored or shelved, Paramount - CBS's current owner - has been keeping a watchful eye on the program's staff and editorial activities the same way a security officer at Bloomingdale's might keep an eye on some dude with green hair and a nose ring.   This was too much for "60 Minutes"'s executive producer Bill Owens (below), who resigned his position.  Owens cited the pressure from Paramount - looking to complete a merger with another media company and wanting to get approval from the Trump regime - not to push Trump too far when speaking truth to power as a reason for his resignation.

What does this mean?  It probably means that when "60 Minutes" returns with all-new stories in September, it will probably mean more celebrity profiles and more nature travelogs from Anderson Cooper.

Meanwhile, CBS's reboot of the old 1980s series "The Equalizer," starring the rapper legally known as Dana Owens (no relation to Bill) in the title role, has been cancelled.  The official reason? Declining ratings, likely.  The real reason?  Airing a series in which a heavy-set black woman beats up a dozen white men in rapid succession at a time when a racist and misogynistic honky is in the White House (also known as the Honky Château) is not a smart thing to do.  For her part, Dana is already promising a new project that she "can't wait to share with" everyone.  Uh, Dana?  Please don't.  Your "projects" in the past thirty-odd years have included two failed daytime talk shows, movies in which you make honky doofuses look even dumber than they already are, and of course your records, which, being rap records, have contributed to the ongoing problem of noise pollution.  Not to mention that Moonie-style mass wedding you officiated on the 2014 Grammy Awards with Madonna as a witness.  Dana, you've made your millions already, now please get thee to a mansion in Short Hills and enjoy your wealth in blissful retirement.

And having just written all that, I think I'd better get myself into hiding.  You know the reason; I won't enunciate it.  😉   

As for CBS's compromised broadcasting standards, the late great Andy Rooney said it best and for all time. CBS, which used to stand for Columbia Broadcasting System, stands for nothing anymore.  They're just corporate initials now. 

 Though they could stand for "compromised broadcasting standards . . ." 😉