Corporate Media

Taking CBS Somewhere

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Article in The New Yorker by Clare Malone, 1/19/26

Headline:  “Inside Bari Weiss’s Hostile Takeover of CBS News“

Subhead:  “The network’s new editor-in-chief has championed a press free from élite bias, while aligning herself with a billionaire class more willing than ever to indulge Donald Trump.”

“. . .Weiss’s embrace of a press free from élite bias—what she might call woke politics—has taken her to the top of the media establishment. It has also aligned her with a tech-billionaire class more willing than ever to indulge Trump to protect the sanctity of shareholder value. . .”

“Trump, for his part, was effusive in his praise of Weiss. “I think you have a great new leader, frankly, who’s the young woman that’s leading your whole enterprise,” he said during his sit-down with O’Donnell. . .“

Read the full article at:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/01/26/inside-bari-weisss-hostile-takeover-of-cbs-news

Do the Media Need Therapy?

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Article in AlterNet by Adam Lynch, 1/23/26

Headline:  “The media has a ‘coping mechanism’ for Trump — and it’s ‘dangerous’: analysis”

Subhead:  “Bulwark Editor Jonathan Last believes he’s uncovered the media’s ‘coping mechanism’ for dealing with a madman, and is warning that it’s deadly and dangerous.”

“ ‘The media tends to treat [President Donald] Trump’s more insane statements as ephemeral, but then turns around and treats his climb-downs as binding,’ said Last. ‘For instance: Trump can say a dozen times that he might run for a third term and the media reports it as ‘Trump said this crazy thing about running again.’ But then Trump gives one interview where he says he won’t run again and the coverage is: ‘Trump rules out third term.’. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.alternet.org/trump-media-coping-mechanism/

 

Gambling with the News?

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Article in Slashdot by BeauHD, 1/21/26

Headline:  “America Is Slow-Walking Into a Polymarket Disaster’

“In an opinion piece for The Atlantic, senior editor Saahil Desai argues that media outlets are increasingly treating prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi as legitimate signals of reality. The risk, as Desai warns, is a future where news coverage amplifies manipulable betting odds and turns politics, geopolitics, and even tragedy into speculative gambling theater. . .”

“The problem is that prediction markets are ushering in a world in which news becomes as much about gambling as about the event itself. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/01/22/006212/america-is-slow-walking-into-a-polymarket-disaster

Media Abandon Civil Rights?

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Article in Free Press by Staff, 1/21/26

Headline:  “Comprehensive New Report Puts Major Media Companies on Notice for Anti-DEI Capitulations”

Subhead:  “In a detailed analysis of the 35 most dominant U.S. media companies, Free Press reveals a disturbing and cowardly reversal on prior civil-rights commitments. . .”

“On Wednesday, Free Press published an authoritative report analyzing the retreat in 2025 of the nation’s largest media companies from prior commitments to promote diversity, equity and inclusion principles in their workplaces and policies. The report — COMPLICIT: Corporate Media’s Capitulation to Trump’s Attacks on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion — sheds new light on the ongoing capitulation of major media and tech companies to the dictates of a bigoted and corrupt Trump administration. . .”

Read the Full article at:

https://www.freepress.net/news/comprehensive-report-puts-major-media-companies-notice-anti-dei-capitulations-trump

Media Kidnapped or Captured?

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Article in FAIR by Gregory Shupak, 1/20/26

Headline: “Labeling Kidnapping a ‘Capture,’ Media Legitimate Violation of International Law”

“Corporate media have deployed a lexicon of legitimation in their coverage of the deadly US invasion of Venezuela and the abduction of President Nicolás Maduro, along with his wife and fellow politician Cilia Flores. Major news outlets have routinely described these events using words like ‘capture’ (New York Times, 1/3/26) or ‘arrest’ (BBC, 1/3/26), which presents them as a matter of enforcing the law against fugitives or criminals, and carries the built-in but false assumption that the US had the right or even duty to conduct its operation in the first place.

“The ludicrous premise is that any time an arrest warrant is issued somewhere in the United States, the US has the right to do anything, anywhere in the world, in pursuit of the subject—including bombing another country, invading it, killing its citizens, and spiriting away its president and first lady. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://fair.org/home/labeling-kidnapping-a-capture-media-legitimate-violation-of-international-law/

Better Late Than. . . With Edits

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Article in Poynter by Tom Jones, 1/20/26

Headline:  “Opinion- ‘60 Minutes’ finally aired the story that stirred up a storm inside CBS News”

Subhead: “The delayed report aired after weeks of internal conflict over editorial independence between veteran journalists and new editor-in-chief Bari Weiss”

“Nearly a month ago, new CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss tried her best to break her new toy by making the extraordinary decision to yank a ‘60 Minutes’ story right before it was set to air. Even though the story — about Venezuelan men deported by the U.S. to a notorious prison in El Salvador — went through five internal screenings, Weiss held the story by claiming it wasn’t ready for air.

Those inside CBS News were furious that Weiss, who has no TV news experience, was telling ‘60 Minutes,’ the gold standard of TV news, what’s appropriate to air.  . . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.poynter.org/commentary/2026/60-minutes-cecot-story-aired/

What Legacy Media Fear?

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Article in FAIR by Raina Lipsitz, 1/14/26

Headline:  “What Scares Establishment Media Most Is Not Socialism But Democracy”

“. . .Establishment media’s obsession with portraying democratic socialism as divisive and/or fatally alienating to voters blinded it to what was truly radical about Mamdani’s campaign: It empowered ordinary people to lead, changing individual lives and history. What most scares the establishment isn’t socialism; it’s people-powered democracy. . .”

“To pundits and corporate media outlets, this is a dangerous lesson: If everyday people realize they don’t need overpaid consultants or self-declared experts to win real change, how long can the status quo be maintained by its beneficiaries?”

Read the full article at:

https://fair.org/home/what-scares-establishment-media-most-is-not-socialism-but-democracy/

Network News Down the Drain?

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Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Amos Barshad, 1/13/26

Headline: “Unaffiliated”

Subhead: “Some TV news stations are breaking their national network affiliations, and leaning into local programming.”

“. . .Amid mass media-job losses over the past year and increases in network television licensing fees that have been mounting for a while longer, WPLG has, since last spring, made sixty new hires.

“The growth has come as a direct result of WPLG’s decision, in August, to cut ties with ABC, with which it’s been affiliated since going on the air, sixty-nine years ago. . .”

Read the full story at:

https://www.cjr.org/analysis/unaffiliated-local-tv-stations-leaving-national-affiliates.php

See No Evil?

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Article in FAIR by Drew Favakeh, 1/13/26

Headline:  “ACTION ALERT: Why Didn’t NYT, WaPo Report What They Knew About Venezuelan Invasion?”

“When the Trump administration invaded Venezuela and kidnapped President Nicolás Maduro on January 3, the New York Times and Washington Post framed it as a surprise. . .”

“But word quickly got out that it was not a surprise to either paper. Semafor (1/3/26), an outlet co-founded by former Times media columnist Ben Smith, reported that both the Times and Post ‘learned of a secret US raid on Venezuela soon before it was scheduled to begin,’ but chose not to report on it, to ‘avoid endangering US troops.’ . .”

Read the full article at:

https://fair.org/home/action-alert-why-didnt-nyt-wapo-report-what-they-knew-about-venezuelan-invasion/

CBS Wreck?

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Article in The Guardian by Anna Betts, 1/12/26

Headline:  “David Letterman calls CBS News a ‘wreck’ under newly installed leadership”

Subhead: “Former late-night host makes comments amid merger of CBS’s parent company Paramount with Skydance Media”

“The former CBS late-night host David Letterman has criticized his old network, calling its news division a ‘wreck’ under its newly installed leadership. . .”

“He said: ‘CBS News is a wreck – it’s just gone. CBS News, for decades, going back to [the second world war], before [it], Ed Murrow would be broadcasting the blitz of London from the rooftop of buildings in London for CBS Radio, and it was that mentality that drove the integrity of CBS News, that has been trampled on, pissed on, and eviscerated by these idiots that have taken it over.’. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/jan/12/david-letterman-cbs-news-bari-weiss

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Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Jem Bartholomew, 1/12/26

Headline:   “And That’s the Way It Is”

Subhead:  “At CBS News, the suppression of critical reporting and the promotion of appeasement reveal Bari Weiss’s true colors.”

Read the article at:

https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/cbs-news-suppression-critical-reporting-appeasement-bari-weiss-tony-dokoupil.php