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.