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Do you ever feel like you’re drowning in right-leaning content every time you turn on the TV or scroll through your feeds? Not just on Fox News or Newsmax, but even on local affiliates that used to stick to traffic reports and weather updates?
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If you’ve noticed it, you’re not alone—and you’re not imagining it. What you’re seeing is the result of a deliberate, decades-long conservative strategy to reshape the American media landscape. It’s not random, and it’s not just the internet amplifying outrage. It’s the product of deregulation, billion-dollar acquisitions, and a methodical push to dominate the flow of information.
This strategy didn’t begin with Donald Trump screaming about “fake news” into his golden megaphone, but he perfected the tactic. Trump weaponized distrust of the press like no president before him, convincing millions of Americans that anything critical of him was a lie, and anything praising him was gospel truth. That narrative became the foundation for an even larger project: if the media won’t flatter you, just buy it, bend it, or build a new one from scratch.
But Trump wasn’t the innovator—he was the inheritor. The groundwork was laid long before him, going back to Ronald Reagan’s deregulation of the airwaves in the 1980s. The fall of the Fairness Doctrine created space for conservative talk radio to flourish, giving voices like Rush Limbaugh—and later, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, and countless imitators—unprecedented reach. By the time Rupert Murdoch launched Fox News in the mid-90s, the conservative media machine was already humming.
What began as isolated outlets or eccentric radio shows turned into a full-spectrum dominance strategy: talk radio, cable television, print newspapers, digital outlets, podcasts, and now even mainstream platforms like CNN and Politico, slowly nudged rightward by billionaires with money and motives. From Sun Myung Moon’s Washington Times to Rupert Murdoch’s empire to Elon Musk’s Twitter rebrand, the story is the same: conservative power players reshaping the narrative by controlling the medium itself.
The result is a media environment where fringe ideas can go mainstream overnight, where conspiracy theories are packaged as entertainment, and where even supposedly “neutral” outlets feel the gravitational pull of conservative money.
And while Democrats and progressives have built impressive independent media brands—from Crooked Media to The Young Turks—there’s still a gaping asymmetry. The Left has influence; the Right has infrastructure.
This isn’t just about bias—it’s about who gets to define reality.
Letting the Genie out of the Bottle: The Fairness Doctrine
How did we end up with news channels that sound more like partisan talk shows than journalism? To answer that, you have to go back to the Fairness Doctrine.
When broadcast news first emerged, lawmakers worried that the three big networks—NBC, ABC, and CBS—would use their dominance to shape public opinion however they pleased. To keep them honest, the FCC introduced the Fairness Doctrine [ [link removed] ]in 1949. It required broadcasters to cover controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a way that represented differing viewpoints. In practice, if you put one side on the air, you had to give time to the other.
For decades, this kept political coverage relatively tame. News was more about facts and big events than fiery opinion. Networks gamed the system by burying opposition voices at odd hours, but the basic principle kept balance on the airwaves.
Conservatives, however, saw it differently. To them, the Fairness Doctrine was a muzzle. They argued it wasn’t fairness, but forced speech—a violation of their First Amendment rights. Libertarians in particular railed against it as government overreach: why should the state dictate what viewpoints a broadcaster must air?
No one embodied that frustration more than Rush Limbaugh. By the 1980s, he was chomping at the bit to go unfiltered. He and other conservative hosts believed they couldn’t build a true movement so long as they were shackled to giving “equal time” to liberal viewpoints. They wanted red meat, not balance.
Enter Ronald Reagan. In 1987, under his administration, the FCC scrapped the doctrine. Just like that, the guardrails were gone. Overnight, conservative broadcasters could lean fully into outrage, grievance, and identity politics without having to share their microphones.
The result was a media revolution. The end of the Fairness Doctrine didn’t just change TV—it supercharged talk radio, set the stage for Fox News, and opened the floodgates for an era of partisan infotainment where anger was profitable and balance was optional.
Once the genie was out of the bottle, there was no putting it back.
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Conservatives felt unfairly viewed by many of the larger media companies in the world. Whether it was NBC, CBS, or ABC for television or the New York Times and the Washington Post for print media, many on the Right felt they did not have the dominance necessary in the media to get their points across. So what do you do when you have a bunch of wealthy conservative businessmen and strategists who want to shape the media landscape?
Easy. You take your money and you build your own empire.
Talk Radio to Podcasts: The Conservative Megaphone
After the Fairness Doctrine was repealed in 1987, conservative voices exploded on the airwaves. Talk radio quickly became the conservative movement’s most powerful tool.
The biggest name was Rush Limbaugh. His bombastic, no-apologies style defined the genre. At his peak, he was syndicated on over 650 radio stations, reaching tens of millions of listeners, and signed an unprecedented $400 million contract over eight years. For decades, Limbaugh wasn’t just a commentator — he was the daily soundtrack of the conservative base, blending grievance politics with humor and outrage. His influence was such that Republican politicians feared crossing him more than their own leadership.
But Limbaugh wasn’t alone. His success inspired a roster of voices: Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Mike Huckabee, Herman Cain, Erick Erickson. All adopted variations of the same formula: provoke outrage, encourage callers to “say what they really think,” and walk a careful line between stoking loyalty and avoiding advertiser backlash.
This is where the “push-and-pull” strategy emerged. On radio, hosts could say edgier, more extreme things than TV personalities, since their audience was narrower and more partisan. They could lean hard on race, immigration, and cultural grievances. Callers made shows feel renegade, “real,” and community-driven — but advertisers were always lurking. If remarks crossed too far into the mainstream, boycott campaigns threatened those multimillion-dollar contracts. So hosts would deliberately fan flames and then pull back, pretending to disavow the most extreme statements while still letting the message sink in.
Out of this came the independent media revolution: if you could dominate talk radio, why not dominate a new medium? Enter podcasting. Limbaugh’s model set the stage for an entirely new generation of pundits: Ben Shapiro, Matt Walsh, Tucker Carlson (post-Fox). They carried the same DNA of grievance, culture-war focus, and pseudo-intellectualism, but with total control over production and distribution.
And before them came the most dangerous precursor of all: Bill Cooper. His show The Hour of the Time (1992–2001) broadcast from the mountains of Arizona, mixing apocalyptic Christianity with anti-government paranoia and UFO conspiracies. His book Behold a Pale Horse became a conspiracy bible, claiming HIV/AIDS was manufactured to kill minorities, that Eisenhower signed a treaty with aliens to abduct humans, and that the Kennedy assassination was carried out by visitors from another planet. Cooper also spread theories about the Waco Siege being the start of civil war and claimed the government was behind 9/11.
His rhetoric inspired real-world violence. A young Army vet named Timothy McVeigh listened to his Waco broadcasts, drove to Texas to watch the siege in person, and internalized Cooper’s warnings. Two years later, he carried out the Oklahoma City bombing.
Cooper’s legacy also shaped media figures. He influenced a brash young Texan named Alex Jones. Though Cooper later dismissed Jones as “a fraud and a coward,” Jones took Cooper’s template and magnified it into InfoWars, spewing conspiracy theories on a global scale. The paranoia pipeline from talk radio to podcasts to online streaming was complete.
The Washington Times: A Capital Counterweight
When the Washington Post emerged as the dominant daily in D.C., conservatives panicked. Without a rival, they believed Republican politicians and policies would never be fairly represented in the nation’s capital.
Enter Sun Myung Moon, the controversial leader of the Unification Church, who founded the Washington Times in 1982. It wasn’t just another paper — it was a deliberate conservative counterweight to the Post. And it quickly became required reading in Republican circles.
President Ronald Reagan himself reportedly read it every day of his presidency. In 1997, he said:
“The American people know the truth. You, my friends at The Washington Times, have told them. It wasn't always the popular thing to do. But you were a loud and powerful voice. Like me, you arrived in Washington at the beginning of the most momentous decade of the century. Together, we rolled up our sleeves and got to work. And—oh, yes—we won the Cold War.”
That endorsement underscored the paper’s role: not just reporting, but legitimizing the conservative worldview as gospel truth.
The paper’s influence reached beyond American politics. During the 1980s, its reporters traveled to South Africa to interrogate Nelson Mandela during his imprisonment. Mandela later recalled:
“They seemed less intent on finding out my views than on proving that I was a Communist and a terrorist. When I reiterated that I was neither, they tried to prove I wasn’t a Christian either by asserting that Martin Luther King never resorted to violence.”
That episode captured the Times’s slant: less journalism, more prosecution of ideological enemies.
Through the 1990s and 2000s, the Washington Times became a breeding ground for right-wing narratives. It published neo-Confederate revisionism, conspiracy theories, and racist editorials — including attacks on Barack Obama. It ran content contradicting mainstream science on climate change and public health, and stocked its roster with conservative culture warriors like David Keene, former NRA president.
Even media critics couldn’t ignore its brazenness. In 1995, the Columbia Journalism Review [ [link removed] ] said: [ [link removed] ]
“The Washington Times is like no major city daily in America in the way that it wears its political heart on its sleeve. No major paper would dare to be so partisan.”
By 2012, the [ [link removed] ]New York Times [ [link removed] ] acknowledged [ [link removed] ] the Times as a crucial training ground for conservative journalists, a pipeline that launched the careers of figures like Larry Kudlow, John Podhoretz, Tony Snow, and others who would cycle in and out of Republican politics and conservative media.
The bottom line: the Washington Times wasn’t just a newspaper. It was a political weapon — one that bent facts, ignored balance, and shaped conservative opinion in the very heart of American power.
Rupert Murdoch’s Empire: Building a Global Conservative Media Machine
Rupert Murdoch’s path to media dominance began modestly. In 1952, he inherited The News, a small paper in Adelaide, Australia. But unlike his father, Murdoch envisioned more than a local legacy — he wanted a global empire.
Murdoch bought up British outlets like News of the World and The Sun, reshaping them into sensationalist tabloids that elevated conservative leaders like Margaret Thatcher. His papers didn’t just cover politics; they actively intervened in it. Reports later surfaced that Murdoch coordinated with Thatcher’s government to kneecap the British trade unions, even manipulating his own print operations to weaken labor’s bargaining power. [ [link removed] ]
This collusion signaled a key Murdoch strategy: use media not as a mirror of events, but as a lever to shape them.
By the 1970s, Murdoch turned his sights to the U.S. He bought the San Antonio Express-News and launched Star, a tabloid. But his crown jewel was acquiring the New York Post, founded by Alexander Hamilton. Under Murdoch, the Post became a conservative funhouse mirror — brash headlines, lurid scandals, and a relentless rightward tilt. Despite critics mocking its style, the Post became the fourth-largest daily in the U.S.
Murdoch’s growing portfolio of TV stations primed him for his boldest move: a 24-hour conservative news channel. To run it, he tapped Roger Ailes, a Republican strategist turned TV executive. Together, they created Fox News in 1996, citing a “lack of consistently conservative-leaning news” in mainstream media.
Freed from the Fairness Doctrine, Fox could broadcast opinion disguised as news around the clock. It quickly dominated cable ratings, outpacing CNN and MSNBC. For conservatives, Fox wasn’t just a channel; it was home base. Its framing of issues — from terrorism to healthcare to immigration — shaped how millions of Americans understood reality.
In his book Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation: A Media Institution with a Mission, David McKnight identified four Murdoch hallmarks:
Free market ideology
Unified positions on policy across outlets
Global editorial meetings dictating coverage
Aggressive opposition to “liberal bias” in other media
In practice, this meant Murdoch’s outlets didn’t merely report the news; they manufactured it.
Murdoch’s influence was tangible. Ronald Reagan’s campaign team credited the New York Post with swinging New York in the 1980 election. In return, Reagan granted Murdoch an FCC waiver allowing him to own both a newspaper and TV station in the same market — an exemption that turbocharged Murdoch’s expansion.
Over time, Murdoch’s empire became synonymous with conservative politics. His papers and networks amplified culture-war grievances, attacked unions, opposed climate legislation, and promoted free-market orthodoxy.
The costs have been enormous. Murdoch outlets have been central to political upheavals in the UK, Australia, and the U.S. His media blurred the line between journalism and propaganda, spawning lawsuits across continents. The most notorious: Dominion Voting Systems v. Fox News, where discovery revealed Fox executives and on-air stars knew Trump’s election fraud claims were false but aired them anyway to appease viewers. The $787.5 million settlement was the largest defamation payout in U.S. history.
Yet even that may be just a footnote. Because Murdoch’s empire — from tabloids to television — created the template: a global infrastructure for right-wing politics, dressed up as news, with influence so vast that governments themselves had to reckon with it.
Newsmax: Loyalty Over Journalism
Newsmax began in the early 2000s as a niche conservative news website founded by Christopher Ruddy. Initially, it tried to position itself as a scrappy competitor to the mainstream press. But while Fox News played to the conservative masses, Newsmax zeroed in on the fringes — serving up content too conspiratorial, too reckless, or too partisan even for Fox.
By the 2010s, Ruddy was transforming Newsmax into a full-fledged media company, poaching on-air talent from Fox News to establish credibility. Though Fox dwarfed it in ratings, Newsmax carved out space as the louder, less restrained cousin. Its editorial policy made the priorities clear: Ruddy once admitted bluntly [ [link removed] ], “We have an editorial policy of being supportive of the president and his policies.”
That “president,” of course, was Donald Trump.
The bond between Ruddy and Trump was personal as much as political. Ruddy was part of Trump’s social circle long before his White House bid — a regular presence at Mar-a-Lago, alternating between the role of confidant and newsman [ [link removed] ]. During Trump’s presidency, Ruddy used Newsmax to deliver glowing coverage and amplify his talking points. For Trump, who prized loyalty above all, Ruddy became indispensable.
The payoff came after the 2020 election. When Fox News angered Trump by calling Arizona early for Joe Biden on election night, Trump turned on his old favorite. In the vacuum, Newsmax surged. Its primetime hosts parroted every allegation of fraud, every fantastical claim, every iteration of the Big Lie. For weeks, Newsmax aired Trump’s conspiracies without correction, giving his base the validation Fox had denied him.
The network’s willingness to spread falsehoods at scale cemented its place in Trump’s inner MAGA circle. It wasn’t about journalistic integrity — it was about loyalty. Ratings spiked as disaffected Fox viewers flocked to Newsmax, eager for a channel that never questioned Trump, never fact-checked him, never pushed back.
In the months after the election, Newsmax’s audience peaked, with some programs drawing more than a million viewers — a remarkable leap for a network once dismissed as marginal. But its embrace of conspiracy theories, from Dominion voting machines to wild tales of international cabals, left it facing the same lawsuits and reputational risks as Fox.
If Fox was the polished megaphone of the conservative movement, Newsmax was its id: angrier, less disciplined, more openly conspiratorial. It showed that there was still room to Trump’s right in the media ecosystem — and that loyalty, not facts, was the real currency of influence.
Buying the Media.
In other cases, conservatives see a relatively successful operation and want to exploit it for their own gains. As seen with other ventures, it takes a lot of time and money to achieve the same level of traction as a Fox News-like entity. So why waste time when you can just infect one like a virus?
Sinclair Broadcasting: Local News, National Agenda
For decades, Americans trusted their local TV anchors more than national talking heads. Conservatives saw an opening: if you could shape the message at the local level, you could influence millions of viewers who might never tune in to Fox News or Rush Limbaugh. That strategy became reality with Sinclair Broadcast Group.
Founded in Maryland, Sinclair wasn’t a household name until the early 2010s, when it began aggressively buying up local TV stations across the country. By 2025, [ [link removed] ]Sinclair owned 185 stations across 86 markets, reaching nearly 40% of American households.
But Sinclair didn’t just own stations. It used them. The company became notorious for “must-run” segments — pre-produced conservative editorials that local anchors were required to air, often sandwiched between community stories and weather reports. Viewers might think they were hearing their trusted local anchor’s opinion, when in fact it was a corporate mandate.
Even before its massive expansion, Sinclair’s politics were clear. After the September 11 attacks, the company ordered all its affiliates to air editorials supporting President George W. Bush’s response. Reporters at Baltimore’s WBFF objected [ [link removed] ], warning the endorsement would undermine their credibility, but corporate overruled them. It was an early glimpse of Sinclair’s willingness to blur journalism with political messaging.
The strategy sharpened in 2014, when Sinclair purchased WJLA-TV, a respected Washington, D.C. station. Almost immediately, programming changed. The station began airing conservative commentaries by Sinclair executive Mark E. Hyman, as well as content critical of the Obama administration.
Perhaps most controversially, WJLA partnered with the conservative Washington Times to feature its weekly “Golden Hammer” award, highlighting supposed examples of government waste. For many D.C. journalists, it was a betrayal of the station’s reputation for objectivity. One staffer told the [ [link removed] ]Washington Post [ [link removed] ]: [ [link removed] ]
“We’ve told people, ‘We’re just like you.’ Not, ‘We’re looking out for the tea party.’”
Sinclair’s genius — and danger — was in its ability to make partisan talking points look local. Viewers in Ohio, Montana, or Florida might not trust Fox News, but they trusted the familiar anchor they’d watched for years. When that anchor delivered Sinclair’s must-run segments, it felt like homegrown truth.
By the Trump years, this strategy paid off. Sinclair stations reliably amplified conservative narratives about immigration, policing, and “fake news.” During the 2016 and 2020 elections, they often mirrored Trump’s talking points almost word for word.
The result: a conservative media empire disguised as your local 6 o’clock news.
CNN: From “The Most Trusted Name in News” to a Rightward Drift
For decades, CNN was the network conservatives loved to hate. Donald Trump blasted it relentlessly from the campaign trail and the White House, branding it “fake news.” His supporters echoed the chant at rallies, and the network became a stand-in for what MAGA world despised about mainstream media.
And yet, in the years following Trump’s presidency, CNN itself began to shift — not to the left, as conservatives claimed, but subtly rightward, under the influence of new corporate leadership and powerful conservative voices in the background.
In 2022, WarnerMedia (CNN’s parent company) merged with Discovery, creating Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD). At the helm was Discovery CEO David Zaslav, who quickly signaled he wanted CNN to pull back from the Trump-era perception of being “anti-Republican.”
Zaslav installed Chris Licht as CNN’s new CEO after the sudden resignation of longtime chief Jeff Zucker. Licht quickly went to work reshaping the network. He oversaw the exits of on-air personalities like Don Lemon, Brian Stelter, and John Harwood — all of whom had been vocal critics of Trump and the GOP. The official line was that CNN needed to restore its “journalistic integrity” and pull away from “outrage porn.” But critics saw something different: a purge designed to appease conservative stakeholders.
Behind Zaslav loomed [ [link removed] ]John Malone [ [link removed] ], a cable TV mogul and longtime conservative donor who openly criticized CNN’s coverage. Malone made no secret of his wish for CNN to model itself after Fox News’ “hard news by day, opinion by night” structure.
In 2021, Malone told CNBC: [ [link removed] ]
“I would like to see CNN evolve back to the kind of journalism that it started with, and actually have journalists, which would be unique and refreshing.”
He later praised [ [link removed] ] Fox anchor Bret Baier as a “reliably centrist newscaster.” That perspective eerily matched Licht’s restructuring strategy: cut voices critical of the Right, lean on “balance,” and blur the line between reporting and conservative-friendly opinion.
The shifts weren’t just at the executive level. CNN began elevating figures with distinctly conservative backgrounds. Kaitlan Collins, one of its marquee anchors, started her career at The Daily Caller, the outlet co-founded by Tucker Carlson.
The network also began regularly featuring conservative pundits under the banner of “balance.” Ben Shapiro, known for his extreme right-wing takes, appeared on CNN panels. Scott Jennings, a longtime Republican strategist who defended Trump during his impeachment, became a regular contributor.
The result was a new kind of CNN: one where right-wing talking heads had a bigger platform, while progressive voices dwindled.
This rightward drift came to a head on [ [link removed] ]October 28, 2024 [ [link removed] ], during an episode of CNN NewsNight. The network hosted a round table discussion including prominent British Muslim journalist Mehdi Hasan and conservative operative Ryan Gidursky, founder of the 1776 Project PAC.
In a shocking moment, Gidursky told Hasan he “hoped [his] pager didn’t go off” — a grotesque reference to the exploding pagers in Lebanon that had killed members of Hezbollah. The remark was widely condemned as racist and inflammatory. CNN eventually banned Gidursky from appearing again. But the real question lingered: why was he invited in the first place?
For many critics, it was evidence that CNN’s leadership was so eager to appease conservatives that they had begun platforming extremists.
Licht was eventually fired in 2023 after internal chaos and poor ratings. But the changes he and Zaslav oversaw — and Malone encouraged — remain embedded in the network. The push to appear “balanced” has meant giving more airtime to conservative voices, even when those voices push disinformation or dangerous rhetoric.
What was once the “most trusted name in news” is now a network struggling with identity, credibility, and a creeping conservative influence.
Politico: When “Playbook” Got a Conservative Publisher
Founded in 2007 by media executive Roger Allbritton, Politico quickly became Washington’s must-read digital outlet. Its Playbook email — delivered every morning like gospel to congressional staffers, lobbyists, and operatives — was the town’s breakfast table. The site prided itself on being fast, granular, and omnipresent, doing for politics what ESPN did for sports: covering every play, every stat, every maneuver.
For years, Politico had a reputation for being centrist or slightly left-of-center — tough on both parties, but not hostile to Democrats. That reputation shifted dramatically after 2021, when Politico was acquired by the German publishing giant Axel Springer.
Axel Springer wasn’t a neutral buyer. Under CEO Mathias Döpfner, the company’s flagship paper Bild became infamous in Germany for its mix of tabloid gossip, sensationalism, and hard-right editorial stances. Its outlets ran campaigns against raising the minimum wage, attacked liberal social causes, and often blurred the line between news and opinion.
When Döpfner brought his empire to Washington, insiders worried Politico would lose its editorial independence. Those fears proved well-founded.
Leaked emails revealed [ [link removed] ] just how openly partisan Döpfner could be. On the eve of the 2020 U.S. election, Döpfner emailed his top executives asking:
“Do you all want to get together for an hour in the morning on November 3 and pray that Donald Trump will again become President of the United States of America?”
It was a startling revelation for a media CEO who now owned one of Washington’s most influential political outlets.
Döpfner’s affinity for right-wing “contrarian” figures was no secret either. He cultivated ties with Elon Musk and Peter Thiel — even securing his own son a position as Thiel’s Chief of Staff. [ [link removed] ]
After acquiring Politico, Axel Springer wasted no time signaling its ideological red lines. Employees were told the company had non-negotiable stances: support for Israel, commitment to free-market economics, and backing for a united Europe. While those positions may sound benign, staffers worried they were the thin edge of a wedge — a way to discipline coverage and push subtle conservative frames into Politico’s journalism.
Politico didn’t suddenly turn into Fox News, but its editorial culture changed. What had once been seen as “inside baseball” reporting with a mild liberal tilt now leaned more toward both-sides framing and subtle nods to conservative talking points.
Politico’s shift matters because it isn’t just another website — it’s the agenda-setter for Washington insiders. When Playbook tilts, the Hill tilts with it. By acquiring Politico, Döpfner didn’t just buy a media outlet. He bought the ability to frame the conversation every morning for the people who run the country.
It’s another example of how conservative-aligned billionaires don’t just build their own media ecosystems (Fox News, Newsmax). Sometimes, they simply buy existing institutions and bend them toward their own worldview.
Twitter: Musk’s “Comedy” Coup
When Elon Musk acquired Twitter in 2022 and rebranded it as X, he framed the move as a crusade for “free speech.” In reality, it was one of the most consequential conservative takeovers of a public square in modern history.
Almost immediately after his $44 billion purchase, Musk reversed years of moderation policies. Banned accounts flooded back: Donald Trump, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Jordan Peterson, Andrew Tate, Project Veritas, Kanye West, and countless others who had been removed for hate speech, harassment, or inciting violence. Musk gleefully declared, “Comedy is back.”
But what came back wasn’t comedy — it was a surge of bigotry.
Independent research confirmed the dramatic shift: [ [link removed] ]
Hate speech spiked by 50% in the months following Musk’s takeover.
Anti-Black slurs rose from an average of 1,282 per day to 3,876 per day.
Anti-gay slurs climbed from 2,506 per day to 3,964 per day.
Antisemitic posts increased more than 61% in just two weeks after Musk lifted bans.
Instead of enforcing rules to protect users, Musk dismantled moderation teams, outsourced trust-and-safety to unreliable community notes, and courted fringe influencers who praised him as a warrior against “woke censorship.”
Musk’s moves didn’t just restore old voices — they normalized extremist ones. Conspiracy theorists, election deniers, and hate-peddlers once relegated to fringe platforms like Gab or Parler suddenly had megaphones again. And unlike those smaller ecosystems, X had hundreds of millions of users, giving them reach they hadn’t enjoyed in years.
This reset also made Trump feel right at home again. After Fox News angered him by calling Arizona for Biden in 2020, Trump had leaned on Newsmax. Musk’s Twitter gave him something even more powerful: a direct line back to his base, algorithmically boosted, without filters.
Musk’s stance on “censorship” emboldened other conservative tech moguls. Mark Zuckerberg shuttered Meta’s fact-checking program, claiming it was “too biased. [ [link removed] ]” Jeff Bezos pivoted the Washington Post’s opinion section to focus narrowly on “personal liberty and free markets,” abandoning many progressive viewpoints. [ [link removed] ]
All told, Musk’s Twitter didn’t just reset one platform — it helped mainstream the idea that “free speech” means unfettered amplification of far-right voices, while silencing progressive watchdogs under the guise of anti-bias.
CBS: Right of Center Broadcasting Station
The most recent movement in conservative media has surrounded CBS. After months of deliberation, the FCC finally approved the merger of Paramount Global and Skydance, founded by David Ellison—son of Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison. With the ink barely dry, Skydance is already eyeing Warner Bros. Discovery for its next acquisition, further consolidating corporate media under conservative-leaning billionaires.
To thank Donald Trump’s administration for approving a merger the Biden FCC and FTC had sought to block [ [link removed] ], Ellison wasted no time signaling his intent to tilt CBS to the Right. He has flirted with working alongside The Free Press founder Bari Weiss, a professional contrarian who built her brand by accusing mainstream outlets of pro-Palestinian bias and NPR of “liberal slant.” Weiss’s entry into CBS would fit the Right’s ongoing project: infiltrate traditional media spaces with ideological watchdogs who recast fairness as left-wing bias.
Ellison also appointed Kenneth Weinstein, the longtime president of the Hudson Institute—a conservative think tank—as CBS’s ombudsman. The kicker? Weinstein has no media experience. His placement was a political favor, slipped in under the pretense of meeting FCC approval conditions, but in practice it is one more way to shift oversight of one of the nation’s largest broadcasters into partisan hands.
Other moves are just as revealing. Ellison has announced plans to scrap CBS’s DEI initiatives. Trump himself bragged that Ellison promised him $20 million worth of PSAs for causes “dear to him.” CBS executives also announced they would only air Face the Nation interviews “unedited” after Trump officials (and Governor Kristi Noem) complained that edits trimmed out some of their more performative rhetoric. And in a telling blow, CBS abruptly canceled The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, citing ratings—but the political context is obvious: Colbert was one of Trump’s most relentless late-night critics.
It’s still early to measure how far right CBS will drift. But Ellison has already shown he’s willing to bend over backwards for Trump and his movement. A once-storied network is now positioned as another pawn in the conservative media chess game.
Nexstar and Tegna: The Merger to End All Local Mergers
If CBS shows how quickly legacy networks can tilt right, the story of Nexstar and Tegna reveals how local television—once considered relatively insulated—has become just as vulnerable.
Last week, Jimmy Kimmel Live! was abruptly put on indefinite hold [ [link removed] ] after Kimmel made remarks about the assassination of Charlie Kirk in his September 15 opening monologue. Within hours, Trump’s White House and the FCC applied direct pressure on ABC to pull the comedian off the air. By midweek, ABC had caved, announcing that Kimmel’s show would be “pre-empted indefinitely.”
But the real tell came before ABC’s announcement. Two of its most powerful affiliates [ [link removed] ]—Sinclair (already infamous in this space) and Nexstar—jumped the gun, pre-empting Kimmel before corporate even acted. The reason? Business. Nexstar is in the middle of a $6.2 billion deal, [ [link removed] ]greenlit by Trump’s FCC, to acquire TEGNA Inc., a Virginia-based broadcaster with 68 stations across 54 markets. The merger would create the single largest owner of local channels in U.S. history, dwarfing even Sinclair’s reach.
Nexstar hasn’t been as brazenly MAGA-friendly as Sinclair—at least not yet. But the Kimmel incident shows just how willing it is to roll over at the first sign of pressure to curry favor in Washington. When the price of consolidation is obedience to Trump, Nexstar has already signaled where it stands.
The Nexstar-TEGNA deal is not just another merger. It’s the canary in the coal mine: proof that local news, once the most trusted source of journalism in America, is being reshaped by billion-dollar buyouts and the heavy hand of conservative politics. If completed, it could lock millions of viewers into a media ecosystem increasingly aligned with the Right—and silence dissenting voices along the way.
Let the Leftwing Billionaires Cook
I know this isn’t the kind of thing you’d usually hear from me, but there’s a method to the madness.
When people think about left-leaning media, they immediately point to MSNBC, CNN, or the public broadcasters like PBS and NPR. And sure, they exist — but they’re either tied up in corporate ownership or constantly fighting for survival against Republican defunding efforts. MSNBC still answers to NBCUniversal and its corporate stakeholders, which limits how progressive it can actually be. Roger Ailes, the man who built Fox News, once ran MSNBC. CNN, as I’ve already covered, has been dragged rightward by billionaires and executives who think they know better. And even PBS and NPR, while independent and nonpartisan, are easy punching bags for the Right — and already had their funding slashed by conservatives in Congress.
Yes, Democrats do have scrappier independent outfits — Crooked Media, The Daily Beast, The Nation, Jacobin, The Young Turks. They punch above their weight, and they’ve shaped conversations in progressive spaces. But let’s be real: they don’t have the kind of money or influence that Fox News, Sinclair, or Newsmax bring to the table.
That’s where we’ve been unilaterally disarming ourselves. Republicans have never been shy about using billionaires to bankroll their media machines. Rupert Murdoch, Christopher Ruddy, and late Richard Mellon Scaife poured money into creating conservative infrastructure. And it worked.
So why should we keep pretending we’re above it? If we expect to put up a fight, we need to be willing to use the same tactics. We have billionaires and venture capitalists on our side — Tom Steyer, Michael Bloomberg, Reid Hoffman — and yes, the favorite boogeyman of the Right, George Soros.
Soros in particular scared the hell out of conservatives when his holding group bought Audacy, Inc., which owned 220 radio stations in 40 markets. Congressman [ [link removed] ]Chip Roy [ [link removed] ] even said: [ [link removed] ]
“This transaction, which affects radio stations that reach millions of listeners across the U.S., including in Texas’ 21st congressional district, should — at minimum — be subject to rigorous FCC oversight to ensure U.S. radio stations are not subject to undue influence.”
Oh, you mean like what Rupert Murdoch and Sinclair have been doing for decades?
The hypocrisy is staggering. Conservatives whine about Soros buying radio stations, but look the other way when Elon Musk drops billions to turn Twitter into a far-right cesspool or when Sinclair forces “must-run” propaganda into local news broadcasts.
Here’s the thing: I don’t like billionaires either. In a perfect world, they wouldn’t exist. But while they do, why should we keep tying one hand behind our back? If you can’t beat ’em, then beat them at their own game. Let the Leftwing billionaires cook — buy up the stations, build the networks, and give progressives the megaphones we desperately need.
Because the Right already has their empire. It’s time we built ours.
TL;DR
Conservatives have spent decades reshaping America’s media ecosystem—first dismantling the Fairness Doctrine, then building empires like Fox News, Newsmax, and Sinclair. But the strategy has now escalated: they’re not just creating their own outlets, they’re buying and bending existing institutions.
Talk Radio → Podcasts: After the Fairness Doctrine ended, figures like Rush Limbaugh built syndicated talk radio into a conservative juggernaut that inspired today’s podcast empire.
Print & Cable Takeovers: The Washington Times became a partisan megaphone, Rupert Murdoch built Fox into the most powerful conservative media empire, and Newsmax leaned into conspiracies to outflank Fox from the right.
Local News Consolidation: Sinclair forced right-wing “must-run” segments into small markets. Now Nexstar’s $6.2B merger with Tegna would create the biggest local news empire in U.S. history—one already bending to Trump’s pressure, like canceling Jimmy Kimmel after his monologue on Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
Legacy Networks Tilt Right: CBS, newly merged with Skydance, is dumping DEI initiatives, flirting with Bari Weiss, installing a conservative ombudsman, canceling Colbert, and even promising Trump millions in free PSAs.
Tech & Social Media: Elon Musk turned Twitter into a megaphone for hate under the banner of “free speech.” Zuckerberg and Bezos followed by gutting fact-checking and reorienting coverage.
The endgame: a near-total conservative chokehold on both traditional and digital media. Democrats and progressives can’t afford to sit back. They don’t need to copy the Right’s propaganda, but they must invest in their own infrastructure, stop unilaterally disarming, and use their resources—including sympathetic billionaires—to push back.
If the Right can buy, use, break, and fix media for their own ends, the Left must be ready to fight with equal intensity—or risk losing the narrative battlefield for good.
The Prescription
Democrats can’t keep wringing their hands. Independent liberal outlets like Crooked Media and Jacobin can’t match Fox or Sinclair without resources. If billionaires exist—and the Right keeps using theirs—then the Left must use its own billionaires (Soros, Bloomberg, Steyer, Hoffman) to buy, build, and bankroll media platforms that can actually compete.
Because right now, progressives are playing checkers while conservatives have been running the chessboard for decades.
By the Ballot is an opinion series published on Substack. All views expressed are solely those of the author and should not be interpreted as reporting or objective journalism or attributed to any other individual or organization. I am not a journalist or reporter, nor do I claim to be one. This publication represents personal commentary, analysis, and opinion only.

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