Trump’s gambit is already paying off. His recent interview with “60 Minutes” was a virtual lovefest, with many of the most controversial parts edited out of the final piece that aired on TV. Weiss also personally hosted a town hall with Erika Kirk that is set to air this Saturday.
With CBS News chastened, ABC News content to fade into the background, and NBC happy to no longer be associated with its more outspoken cable outlet, one might think Trump is done humiliating legacy media. But that isn’t how Trump operates.
Trump thrives on exploiting every advantage by humiliating the weak. And these billionaires, for all their bravado, have revealed themselves to be pathetically weak.
With all of his other pieces in place, Trump has turned his attention to the fate of CNN. Its parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery, is currently the subject of a takeover bidding war.
On one side is Netflix, which has agreed to purchase the company’s studio assets but not its cable stations. In other words, it wants to leave CNN behind to fend for itself.
On the other side is the newly beefed-up Paramount Skydance — the owner of CBS News — which is trying to convince Warner Bros. shareholders to instead sell the entire company, including CNN, to the Ellison-controlled entity.
Yesterday, Trump made clear that he will oppose any deal that does not result in gutting CNN. Speaking from the White House, he announced that CNN’s current management is “very dishonest” and should not “be allowed to continue.” Any deal, he declared, “should be guaranteed and certain that CNN is part of it or sold separately.”
In other words, one way or another, CNN must be sold to someone who will change the face of the company, making it friendlier to Trump and the GOP.
In a bygone era, such gross tactics would not have worked. Business leaders would have been repulsed by the suggestion of White House interference in a private business transaction. Media owners would have been too proud to allow their outlets to be pressured by politicians. Trump’s words would have backfired and caused CNN to stand even taller against the administration.
Today, however, everyone involved seems certain to capitulate. If the Ellisons win their bid, CNN is expected to fall under Bari Weiss and morph into a slightly more centrist version of Fox News. I would not be surprised if Netflix takes steps to find CNN a Trump-approved owner.
This story is as sad as it is predictable. And for legacy media, the slide toward capitulation and irrelevance appears irreversible. Virtually every major corporate-owned outlet is navigating this consequential moment by watering down its mission and its coverage.
However, there is a silver lining. The many failures of legacy media have accelerated the growth of a new media landscape of smaller, independent outlets like Democracy Docket.
When I was just a lawyer fighting for fair and free elections in 2020, I did not know that Trump would return as an autocrat, but I saw the moral rot and decay that was already underpinning “both-sides” journalism.
I wanted to do something about it.
To the shock of many, I ignored all the doubters and naysayers and launched Democracy Docket as a stand-alone media company. It is not dependent on Substack. It has no corporate backers or venture capitalists. It rises or falls based solely on our readers and paying members.
As it has grown, my directive to our staff has stayed the same: remain fiercely independent and unapologetically pro-democracy. With 22 employees and hundreds of thousands of subscribers, that strategy is working. It is now a model that many other news outlets are following, and we need them all to succeed.
The billionaires are destroying legacy news outlets. We can’t stop that. We can, however, make sure that what comes next is better, stronger and built for this moment. If you can, consider supporting Democracy Docket at the link below.
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