The future of news media: From a 'free press' to propaganda for the olichargy. Part 2 of 3

ANALYSIS: PART 2 OF 3.

I admit I was naive and idealistic when I became a journalist. I believed in the mythic power of the press — the role of journalism in exposing the horrors of the Vietnam War and shaming Richard Nixon into resignation. I thought simply telling the truth would right wrongs. I was wrong. The Fourth Estate is in danger.

During the Trump reign, we are witnessing the construction of an "Oligarchic OS." CBS used to be the gold standard for television journalism. With the departure of several highly-respected journalists, including 60 Minutes veterans Cecilia Vega, Anderson Cooper and Scott Pelley and the previous releases of award-winning Elaine Quijano and Lisa Ling, the network's credibility has sunk to new lows, reflected in its flailing ratings. 

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is Part 2 of a 3-part analysis of America's Fourth Estate and how it affects AANHPI communities. Click here for Part 1: CBS News suffers a million cuts. 

When Larry Ellison backs the Paramount-Skydance merger and eyes a $111 billion "Paramount Discovery" leviathan, he isn't just buying a movie studio. He is tethering iconic news brands like CBS News and CNN directly to Oracle’s AI infrastructure.

This is dangerous because it creates a closed-loop reality:

• Your news (CBS), your entertainment (Paramount+), and your social data (his group's play for TikTok) all run on his servers. The "free press" stops being a public service and becomes a data-mining operation.

• We’ve already seen the retreat: Jeff Bezos cutting staff at the Washington Post; Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, the L.A. Times owner, blocking the endorsement of Kamala Harris; and Elon Musk turning X (formerly Twitter) into a personal megaphone. Fox News and the New York Post, and the Wall Street Journal are all controlled by the family of billionaire Rupert Murdoch.

• When the person who provides the government's cloud computing also owns the nightly news, the "Watchdog" doesn't just lose its teeth—it becomes the PR department for the billionaire class.

We are watching a quiet, dangerous shift in how Americans get their information. A modern, ultra-wealthy oligarchy is buying up the digital printing presses and the broadcast towers, and it’s threatening the very fabric of our multicultural democracy. When a tiny handful of centi-billionaires holds the keys to the kingdom, the diverse voices of everyday people — including our Asian American and Pacific Islander communities — get pushed further to the margins.

Buying the free press

What we are witnessing across the American landscape is not philanthropy; it is a calculated transformation of our public square into a highly specialized tool for the super-rich. While the initial acquisition of a legacy news outlet buys a billionaire an immediate seat at the cultural table, the true endgame is far more transactional.

They see themselves as a ruling class, above the daily fray the majority of Americans must maneuver through and they don't like being watched, regulated and saddled with things that might make a better world like workers' rights, equality and diversity-enhancing requirements.

The question that arises, though, is why. Why are the ultra-rich — who already have everything they need to lead super-comfortable lives with their multi-homes, yachts and jets  — so hellbent in controlling America's story.

The simple answer is: So they can get richer. They may talk about shareholders and pubilc good, but in the end, the reason is so they can put more wealth into their own bulging pockets so they can buy an island   

They are converting ink and airwaves into concrete political and economic leverage through several deliberate maneuvers:

• Rewriting economic reality: Editorial directions are subtly pivoted to normalize extreme wealth gap disparity. Outlets under billionaire control frequently question the viability of wealth taxes while framing corporate tax cuts as universal economic wins.

• Suffocating the labor movement: The narrative machine is deployed to systematically cast labor unions in a negative light. Workplace violations are downplayed, while corporate consolidation is celebrated as "market efficiency."

• Buying immunity from regulation: By controlling the primary watchdogs of democracy, the super-rich insulate their primary tech, energy, and retail empires from antitrust scrutiny and environmental accountability.

• Controlling policymakers: Direct ownership of major journalistic platforms grants unprecedented leverage over Washington lawmakers. Politicians seeking endorsements or fearing targeted negative press quickly become receptive to the owner's broader corporate agendas.

• Silencing the watchdogs: The platforms are actively weaponized to discredit independent regulatory agencies, investigative journalists, and reform-minded political figures who threaten the status quo.

• Killing the free press: A key goal is to undermine traditional media outlets, which are frequently labeled as having a "liberal bias". By creating a robust alternative ecosystem, right-wing owners can discredit critical reporting and provide a direct "megaphone" for the MAGA agenda.

• "Flooding the Zone": This strategy involves overwhelming the public with a constant stream of startling statements and initiatives. The goal is to create chaos, making it difficult for opponents or the media to focus on any single issue or discern fact from fiction.

• Creating chaos: This strategy involves overwhelming the public with a constant stream of startling statements and initiatives. The goal is to create chaos, making it difficult for opponents or the traditional media to focus on any single issue or discern fact from fiction.

A public confused with a boatload of misinformation and outright lies is a malleable public. This is a dangerous consolidation of narrative power that directly compromises journalistic integrity. 

Roots of the information monopoly

MEDIA JUSTICE

When I was working for the traditional newspapers, it seemed like they were changing ownership every few years as the bigger newspapers bought out the local outlets. Even the traditional large chains like Knight-Ridder, McClatchey, News Media Corp., and Gannet, struggled under the loss of revenue to the new tech media.

The rise of targeted digital advertising and the dominance of tech platforms stripped local newspapers and legacy media of their traditional revenues. This debt crisis made media corporations susceptible to buyouts from private equity firms and tech billionaires, who increasingly use these outlets as "loss leaders" for broader economic and political influence.

The same tech oligarchs who build the nation's data centers, surveillance tools, and AI infrastructure also control the algorithms and social networks that dictate what counts as news. 

Because the public relies on these platforms for information, tech oligarchs have transformed simple content distributors into highly centralized gatekeepers.

Views from the edge

Let’s be real for a minute: billionaires aren’t buying up media networks because they suddenly developed a deep, burning passion for investigative journalism. No, they’re buying the megaphone as a tool to protect the business that put them in the very top of the one-percent. 

By gobbling up news outlets and information pipelines, the ultra-wealthy are securing the kind of systemic political leverage that keeps their fortunes safe from things like fair taxes and corporate accountability. It’s information weaponized to rewrite the rules of the game in their favor.

And it’s not just a hunch. Hard data from media watchdogs shows exactly where this road leads: it completely hollows out our democratic guardrails. When you control the narrative, you control the economy. 

Simply put: The rich get richer and the rest of us, well, we find ourselves fighting among ourselves for the scraps.

However, there is a more sinister complicated and dangerous view that  says accumulating these media trophies is not about making a quick buck.  It’s about power. It is about creating a libertarian paradise in which the ruling class can do whatever they want in order to make money and keep it for themselves and for their vanity projects. One way of doing that is to eliminate the institution that is supposed to protect us from unfettered power by shaping elections, controlling the narrative and convincing us what we want.

By choking out competition and drowning out everyday voices, this media monopoly does one thing exceptionally well — it entrenches extreme inequality while keeping the rest of us on the edge looking in. 

Our AANHPI communities have fought too hard to break down walls and gain access so we can build our own platforms and tell our own stories to let them be drowned out by billionaire gatekeepers. We cannot afford the luxury of apathy. We need to stay alert, think critically, and protect independent journalism. Be part of the ongoing conversation — because the future of our democracy depends on it.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news, views and chismis from an AANHPI perspective, follow me on Threads, on X, BlueSky or at the blog Views From the Edge. If you find this perspective interesting, please repost.

AANHPI turning to streaming networks to find content and characters they can relate to

AANHPI audiences are flocking to the streaming networks like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon in search of stories reflecting their concerns and characters that look like them.

Compared to the general population, AANHPI audiences watch about 27% more streaming content – the platform with the highest AANHPI representation at more than 10% share of screen, according to a new report from Nielsen.

The AANHPI audience has made it clear – through their voices and dollar spend – that they desire for their stories to be seen and heard. Studios and advertisers can tap into the growing value of authentic stories and inclusive representation to engage an audience that is eager to see itself represented on screen.

"Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders (AANHPI) are a driving force in the US, both as cultural influencers and powerful consumers," says the report.

In addition, the Nielsen report, 2023 Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Diverse Intelligence Series , shows high bingeability scores of Asian-led content across top streaming platforms and opportunities for advertisers to better engage AANHPI audiences.

Despite a slight dip in representation from 2021 to 2022, streaming programs are still significantly more inclusive of AANHPI people than other platforms. Streaming had more than twice the representation on broadcast and three times the representation on cable. In addition, Asian-inclusive content is highly bingeable and attracts all audiences beyond AANHPI viewers.

"Asians are the fastest growing segment of the U.S. population, both in numbers and buying power. Studios and advertisers can tap into the growing value of authentic stories and inclusive representation to engage an audience that is eager to see itself represented on screen," said Patricia Ratulangi, Vice President of Global Communications - DE&I at Nielsen.

"Asian-led content continues to successfully attract and retain audiences, celebrating high bingeability scores across all major streaming platforms."

For the upcoming Asian Pacific American Heritage Month in May, Nielsen is  collaborating with Gold House, the leading platform that unites, promotes, and invests in Asian Pacific creators and companies, to further spotlight AANHPI driven television content.

"We're excited to partner with Nielsen and spotlight content that continues to captivate audiences and advance representation of our diverse communities," said Jeremy Tran, Executive Director of Gold House. "Through our collaboration, we were excited to see Asian-led shows amass more than one million new viewers, whether in its third season like Never Have I Ever or in its first season like The Company You Keep."*

In this report, Nielsen explores the media platforms and content that’s drawing Asian Americans. For marketers, content creators and media publishers, we hope you’ll see there is value – and audiences – to be gained when you embrace our community.

Other key highlights in the 2023 Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Diverse Intelligence Series include:

• AANHPI audiences watch about 27% more streaming content – the platform with the highest AANHPI representation at more than 10% share of screen.

• Despite a slight dip in representation from 2021 to 2022, streaming programs are still significantly more inclusive of AANHPI people than other platforms. Streaming had more than twice the representation on broadcast and three times the representation on cable. In addition, Asian-inclusive content is highly bingeable and attracts all audiences beyond AANHPI viewers.

• Good content appeals to all audiences

1. 91% of AANHPI audiences and 
2. 87% of general audiences are open to content featuring people outside of their identity group.

• In addition, the report shows high bingeability scores of Asian-led content across top streaming platforms and opportunities for advertisers to better engage AANHPI audiences.

1. Advertising in Asian-led content delivers value AANHPI audiences are 46% more likely than the total - population to buy from brands that advertise in inclusive content. 
2. In 2022 brands in the fashion, pet care, electronics and travel categories allocated a significant portion of their advertising budget toward content that features and appeals to the AANHPI community. These are also the categories where Asian Americans are spending more than the general population.

FYI: Download the 2023 Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Diverse Intelligence Series for more details and insights. Please visit www.nielsen.com/asian-american to learn more. Join the discussion on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/nielsen-diversity-equity-and-inclusion/) and Facebook (Nielsen DiversityEquityAndInclusion).

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow @DioknoEd on Twitter.

Connecting the Dots: What’s behind CNN's turn to the right?

Billioinaire investor John Malone.

ANALYSIS

If you're like most Americans and you depend on TV for your news source, you might have noticed a change on CNN, the mother of the all-news format.

Some wary viewers say the new CNN is a wolf  (or Fox) in sheep's clothing but the ongoing transformation of CNN from a moderate news outlet to a network with a more conservative bent is but the tip of a more troubling trend changing the world of journalism.

Already gone from CNN are John Harwood, Jeff Tobin and Brian Steiter, who pulled no punches in criticizing the Trump administration's extremist policies. 

Some staffers have confided to the Daily Beast that it may be only a matter of time before Don Lemmon and Jim Acosta, CNN mainstays and whose criticism of Donald Trump and his ultra-right allies are well known, fall victim to the transformation.

Most journalists and media watchers are aghast at the sharp right turn that's happening at CNN, but the firings of the key on-air personalities sent a clear message to staffers: soften criticism of the right or you'll be next to lose your job.

The question floating over one of the world’s largest and arguably the most important news organizations, is why the network is changing. Is it because the new CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, its new owner, wants to right (pun intended) the network's leftward list? Or is it a conservative billionaire John Malone, and friend to Fox's Rupert Murdoch, flexing his muscle as an investor?

CONNECTING THE DOTS

Malone's reputation and his fortune was built in the cable TV business. He has deep and longstanding ties with David Zaslav, the CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD). Zaslay says the changes at CNN were implemented for business and editorial reasons, not because of his relationship with Malone. To further distance himself from any controversy, Malone picked Chris Licht, former Discover CEO, to head the new CNN.

Formerly sitting on the board of the Cato Institute, the libertarian think tank, and donating $250,000 to Trump’s 2017 inaugural committee says something about his conservative/libertarian bent. Additionally and more telling, at one point, he owned 32% of Fox. It should be noted, however, two years later, Malone told CNBC that Trump generated too much chaos and shouldn’t have a second term. However, he tempered his pivot when he said, “Look, I think a lot of the things Trump has tried to do — identifying problems and trying to solve them — has been great. I just don’t think he’s the right guy to do it."

It is no secret what Malone wants as an influential investor. He has repeatedly voiced in public his preference for CNN to remake itself. His dream CNN, not so coincidentally, syncs with the new CNN's plan to steer the network away from what Malone and his allies  call a "liberal bias" they say muddles opinion and news and shift it toward a more moderate and a less biased presentation.

“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 said in a CNBC interview, in which he also suggested a model: “Fox News, in my opinion, has followed an interesting trajectory of trying to have ‘news’ news, I mean some actual journalism, embedded in a program schedule of all opinions.” 

The CNN newsroom is changing.

Are you kidding me? Malone is holding up Fox News as an example of "actual journalism?" For the sake of brevity, let's just say that what's broadcast from Fox is not news. It is propaganda.

The world has changed since CNN's birth in 1980. Back then, objective reporting was the norm and idealistic goal from which news outlets barely wavered. With the emergence of Rupert Murdoch's Fox News is just one of the media that he has under his thumb. The Wall Street Journal, the Times of London and the New York Post are all part of the Murdoch media empire.

Objective, politically neutral reporting would be fine if everyone played with the same rules. Fox's impact as a journalistic poseur is so great that the journalistic ideal of objectivity and "balanced" reporting of the news doesn't effectively counter the Fox network's unrelenting right-wing bias. It is like bringing a knife to gunfight.

For a long time, conservative news outlets have been perpetuating the myth that mainstream media is owned by liberals. That is far from the truth. Studies show the majority of the media are owned by Republicans.

In today's media landscape, the burden of ferreting out the truth falls on the viewer, who is more often than not, too inattentive to change the channel, content to feel the outrage spewing forth instead of listening to the pesky complicated details.

Today, media operates in a 24/7 environment, not the one-on-one media rivalries of the last century epitomized by the NY Times competition vs. the Washington Post during the Watergate scandal.

What may seem like a liberal bias to business investors like Malone, is the traditional media trying to present verifiable evidence-backed facts vs the outright lies and disinformation screaming from Fox. Based on Maline's statements, using Fox as his North Star, anything left of Fox is liberal.

Like the Murdochs, Malone calls himself a libertarian, someone who prefers minimizing government (except the military) and letting corporations run rampant over the country (re: consumers) as long as it brings in the dollars.

CORPORATE MEDIA

Like so many mainstream media, CNN is a victim of the new ownership who like Malone, view media as investment opportunities instead of providing news to the public, a perhaps romanticized vision that may be on its deathbed.

A study, "The Politics of CEOs," published by the National Bureau of Economic Researcher, researchers found that 18.6% of CEOs consistently donated to Democrats, while 57.7% donated to Republicans, with the rest leaning toward neither party.

That may not be surprising to progressives who have long railed that conservative ownership of media are increasingly calling the shots on news coverage.. They calim that big business tends to benefit more from conservative policy goals like lowering taxes and easing up on regulations. Labor unions donate heavily to Democrats, who tend to support more worker-friendly policies.

“Public corporations have massive financial resources, and directing even a tiny fraction of them to politics could have a profound impact,” say the researchers. “In particular, because our evidence indicates that public companies are disproportionately headed by Republican CEOs, the emergence of such a scenario could have a significant impact on the balance of power and advantages between the two main political parties.”

FOX IS NOT A NEWS NETWORK

It is wrong to equate CNN to Fox as Malone does. CNN, at least to date, presents reports that have been verified, once, twice, perhaps three times, with evidence and allows viewers to digest the information.

Fox's defenders say it is just another view of the same news as presented by the mainstream media.  In my view, Fox should not be equated with CNN. Fox is not news. It presents propaganda with an agenda.

Real news organizations do not twist the news to fit their purposes. For Fox, the information they spew is to support the GOP and criticize the Democrats. Another way of saying the same thing, Fox favors that information that helps corporate interests, ie. and is not interested in dispensing information that might help the nation's citizenry make decisions.

CNN, and even the more liberal MSNBC, may present opinions but fundamentally, they adhere to the facts. Fox does not.

Investor-owned media, steers away from news that may be harmful to corporate interests, such as climate change, mass incarceration rates, racism and basically, anything good Biden has done to help the economy, strengthen infrastructure, or provide affordable health care.

The changes at CNN are likely not done.

Like many unknown billionaires who prefer to stay out of the public's eye and immune to their scrutiny, Malone claims he had nothing to do with CNN's transformation. Even if Malone didn't directly order the firing of CNN staffers, Zaslav and Licht, are aware of Malone's wishes and like good lapdogs, they did their owner's bidding.

That's how things are done in the rarified air of the 1%. Malone's hands remain clean. Let the minion millionaires do the dirty work.

Aware of the pending changes coming to CNN, on Stelter's last show he said: “It’s not partisan to stand up for decency and democracy and dialogue. It’s not partisan to stand up to demagogues. It’s required. It’s patriotic. We must make sure we don’t give platforms to those who are lying to our faces.”

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow @DioknoEd on Twitter. 

Sunday Read: Who the hell is Chanel Rion and what was she doing in a Presidential press briefing?

SCREEN CAPTURE / CSPAN

OAN White House correspondent Chanel Rion asks her question.

During a press briefing by the White House's Coronavirus Task Force led by Donald Trump, an Asian American reporter asked a question that prompted one reporters to say, it was the "dumbest question I ever heard."

Chanel Rion, a Korean American reporter for OAN (One America News), the unabashedly pro-Trump media outlet asked what appeared to be a staged question intended to give Trump the opportunity to blast the mainstream media.

Before she even started, Trump interjected: “OAN — very good,” he said. “Thank you very much, they treat me very nicely. Go ahead.”

“Mr. President, do you consider the term ‘Chinese food’ to be racist because it is food that originated from China?” Rion asked leaning forward in her chair.

“I don’t think that’s racist at all,” Trump played along.

“On that note, major left-wing media, even in this room, have teamed up with Chinese communist party narratives, and they are claiming you are racist for making these claims about ‘Chinese virus,’” Rion continued, before serving up a question meant to be a softball for Trump: “Is it alarming that major media players, just to oppose you, are siding with foreign state propaganda, Islamic radicals, and Latin gangs and cartels and they work right here out of the White House with direct access to you and your team?”

“It amazes me when I read the things that I read,” Trump replied with a grin, before going on a familiar rant about all the "fake news" he feels have been critical of him.

“I don’t think anybody has done as much as I have done in three years,” he noted at one point. “This administration has done a great job. But the press is very dishonest.”

Rion, meanwhile, wasn't finished pitching softballs. “They are siding with state propaganda,” to which Trump to readily agree that “they are siding with China.”

OAN, a far-rightwing outlet is not respected, even among the other conservative media. Siraj Hashmi of the Washington Examiner, a conservative newspaper, said "This might be the dumbest question I've ever heard."

The camera couldn't catch the reaction of the other reporters in the room, but they were probably straining not to roll their eyes. Later some of themt weeted their reactions.

"OAN is so Far Right, It Makes FOX News Look Balanced" reads a Media Matters headline.

During her time at OAN, Rion (her real name is Ryan) accompanied Trump “lawyer” Rudy Giuliani on his mission to Ukraine to find dirt on the Biden family. She recently ran a story making the wild assertion that the coronavirus was created in a North Carolina lab, which in itself is a talking point of the Chinese government.

Rion claims her family left the US temporarily because they couldn't stand living in a country with Bill Clinton as President. During that time, the live in South Korea, where her mother was born. 

According to Media Matters, before joining OAN in May 2019, Rion worked as a pro-Trump editorial cartoonist whose illustrations promoted anti-Muslim bigotry; Seth Rich conspiracy theories; the book of a virulent anti-Semite; and a call for “armed citizens” to defend the country against purported coups and assassination attempts by the “violent left.”