The Billionaire Trump Supporter Who Will Soon Own the News

[ElChupacabra]

Yes, and this is an opinion piece, so we can't be sure Ellison will be like Murdoch or even worse. But, it doesn't look good.

For me it doesn't but for very different reasons, mostly to do with these types of large consolidations. Trying to steer content towards an ideological lean would be bad for business in some areas based on audience demographics, and the Ellisons are in this to make money.

 

[element94]

The excerpts below are from a NYT OpEd NYT Link a subscription free archived copy is here https://archive.ph/hzEUe

Larry Ellison is already a major stakeholder in CBS and Paramount. Now CNN, HBO and a major share of TikTok are in his sights. If all goes as anticipated, this tech billionaire, already one of the richest men in the world and a founder of Oracle, is poised, at 81, to become one of the most powerful media and entertainment moguls America has ever seen.

For the rest of us, the effect of Mr. Ellison’s gambit could be every bit as consequential, if not more so, than what happened a generation ago when Rupert Murdoch brought his brand of Down Under snark and cynicism to create what has become Fox News, intensifying our political polarization.

Mr. Ellison’s expected incursion into Hollywood and Big Media, if successful, could also go well beyond what other tech moguls like Jeff Bezos and Marc Benioff have attempted through their acquisitions of The Washington Post and Time magazine, respectively. For those men, the acquisitions were more like expensive hobbies.

Mr. Ellison is up to something very different: transforming himself into a media magnate. Along with his son, David, he could soon end up controlling a powerful social media platform, an iconic Hollywood movie studio and one of the largest content streaming services, as well as two of the country’s largest news organizations. Given Mr. Ellison’s friendship with, and affinity for, Donald Trump, an increasingly emboldened president could be getting an extraordinarily powerful media ally — in other words, the very last thing our country needs right now.

There’s more: The Ellisons are also, reportedly, preparing a bid — of perhaps $80 billion, according to some estimates — for Warner Bros. Discovery, the media conglomerate that controls such jewels as HBO Max, the Warner Bros. movie studio and CNN.

No matter their motives, two independent journalistic voices, CBS News and CNN, could soon be combined into something potentially almost unrecognizable, something way too close to what is served up on a daily basis by the Murdochs. And that will put yet another chink in the fragile armor that is America’s democracy.

Great. CBS and CNN may become Fox News clones. Given the success Fox has had brainwashing our citizens, this would be very bad for our country.

The moralless morass that is MAGA has a new benefactor, not that the grunts at the bottom will see any change for the better. This is yet another result of what happens when one person is allowed to gain this much power. We used to act when a company got that much monopolizing power, but not one man, because when you have that much wealth, and thereby power, you can afford to buy not just buy a few politicians, but all of them.

 

[RedFishBlueFish]

Not enough magidiots to keep them afloat if they become Faux Nooz.

I hadn't thought about that. But that may be the case. If you have 3 networks pushing propaganda like Fox and only 30% of the population will watch them and the rest refuse, they might not be able to make it. Perhaps CNN and CBS will become Fox-lite?

 

[ataraxia]

OMG! The left could be losing their long held control of the media.

Yeah, pretty soon we may ALL be chasing cat eating Haitians, cancer causing wind turbines, autism causing vaccines, and genocidal S Africans.