Media Monopoly Madness
From the Murdoch's to the Ellison's, we are in big trouble baby
Somebody cue the theme song from “Succession” because it’s happening in real time, as we see the Ellison media empire following the Murdoch media mayhem playbook, with its recent acquisition of Warner Brothers, TikTok, CBS, and more. Get ready.
Murdoch Media Mayhem
As we have seen with the far-reaching media damage of the notorious Murdoch family (the inspiration for “Succession” Roy family, and to an extent media mogul Sir Henry Muck in “Industry”), the Ellison family are now giving them a run for their money stateside. The conservative Murdoch media empire - now led by Lachlan Murdoch as Rupert Murdoch is now 94 - has wreaked havoc on the world of media with disinformation, damaging tabloids, and corporate-supported mass messaging. Their media takeover, comprising News Corp and Fox Corporation (including Fox News, The Sun, The Times, and The Wall Street Journal), has been a source of significant damage, both internally to the family itself and externally to the political and social fabric of the countries in which it operates. Between the Murdoch controlled “news” and the mass use of unchecked social media spreading misinformation, eroding media literacy, and dismantling critical thinking has really led us to this moment of division, having so easily redirected the public through strategic communications. The alarms have been going off for a long time now, but this next step into the Ellison monopoly should be louder than ever given what is at stake to be further compromised.
*As someone who speaks and advocates on media literacy and media psychology, this becomes more distressing by the day as I hear people around me repeating false news based on a single clip or story without context.
Ellison Erosion
The landscape of entertainment and news just shifted forever in a negative way. As if struggling with disinformation in the United States media landscape wasn’t hard enough, the Trump friendly Ellison family - after a relentless pursuit of buying Warner Brothers in a battle with Netflix, for $111 Billion with the help of Arab Sovereign Funds no less - has swallowed up a large piece of the American media landscape. Shortly after its destruction of CBS and installing an extremely problematic and unqualified Bari Weiss as its Editor-in-Chief of CBS News, the mass exodus of journalists and producers from the network was inevitable, as the obvious path of mess the Ellison’s create raises big concern for the future. Similarly, Larry Ellison being a key investor in the new U.S.-based entity controlling TikTok, saw obvious censoring on the social platform, not missed by users. This was especially concerning as through his AI company Oracle, he has openly advocated for a widespread, AI-powered surveillance state, arguing that constant monitoring by cameras and artificial intelligence will ensure citizens are on their "best behavior".
*If you are concerned about increasing AI surveillance, be sure to read up on the standoff between the Department of Defense and Anthropic, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced that his own company had successfully negotiated new terms with the Pentagon
If you followed last year’s Skydance deal, you saw Ellison merge Paramount with Skydance with the blessing of Trump, given his political dealings. This is part of what led to Stephen Colbert (CBS) and Jimmy Kimmel (ABC) getting punished for speaking out against them - already a big red flag, which the public correctly, and loudly, calling it out. Now with this Warner Brothers deal, they will control the following:
This range of media control is clearly a monopoly, but as is the case with the tech giants who have not yet been made to break up their monopolies either (despite government efforts), five corporations now own 90% of the U.S. media market —> Comcast NBCUniversal, The Walt Disney Company, Discovery, News Corp, Paramount Skydance, and now Warner Bros. which they will takeover.
This corporate consolidation has had massive control over the shaping of news and information we receive in the United States, but it will become more so. Are your ready for this, are we ready for this? And are we supporting further media literacy education for our children, because is will be increasingly necessary. It has been for quite some time.
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