Stop Defending Bari Weiss

"The year is 2029. President Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, having spent years raging against Fox News as a propaganda organ whose very operation is illegal, has found a pressure point to control it. She enables its sale to owners who are friends of hers, and whose business depends on regulatory favors she has made a practice of doling out to allies. As the new editor in chief of Fox News, the owners install Tim Miller, a skeptic of conservatism who has never previously worked in television news."

"But then AOC complains that her friends at Fox News aren't moving fast enough, and the network is still running critical coverage of her. Days later, Miller kills a long-scheduled report showing how AOC may have flouted the Constitution in order to have people tortured. It is safe to say, I think, that conservatives would be upset. What's more, they would probably not care whether Miller's stated reasons for pulling the report had any journalistic merit."

"Donald Trump openly boasted that Larry and David Ellison-the father-son duo that now owns Paramount, CBS's parent company-are "big supporters of mine, and they'll do the right thing." He implied that he expected more positive coverage from CBS News and its newly appointed editor, Bari Weiss. He was right to expect as much, given that Larry Ellison reportedly assured him that he and his son would make Paramount more conservative, according to reporting from The New York Times."

A hypothetical scenario shows a president using regulatory leverage to place allies in control of a major news outlet and install a sympathetic editor who suppresses critical reporting. Such actions prompt concerns that ownership aligned with political power can override journalistic judgment and chill investigative coverage. The situation mirrors developments at CBS/Paramount: influential owners with political sympathies installed a new editor and prompted expectations of friendlier coverage, while critics noted continued critical reporting and complained that ownership shifts threatened editorial independence and public trust in the press.

Read at The Atlantic