Former CNN anchor Jim Acosta used his new program to sound the alarm over what he portrayed as a looming, Trump-aligned media empire after Paramount emerged victorious in the bidding war for Warner Bros.
Discovery, the parent company of CNN.
According to the Daily Caller, Netflix withdrew from its pursuit of Warner Bros. Discovery on Thursday after Paramount Skydance submitted a higher offer, clearing the way for a potential consolidation of major media assets under a single corporate umbrella. Acosta, speaking Friday on The Jim Acosta Show, argued that the prospective ownership structure would tilt CNNs editorial posture in favor of President Donald Trump and singled out the possibility of CNN senior political commentator and Republican strategist Scott Jennings receiving his own program as a troubling sign.
[W]e may have a scenario in this country where a MAGA-friendly corporation, a Trumpy corporation, Oracle, will control both CBS News and CNN, Acosta warned, invoking a series of authoritarian regimes to dramatize his point. In what world is that normal? How is that happening in America? I can understand it happening in Russia Hungary Turkey Visit the countries that have state-controlled media These are not places where you want to live, by and large These are places you dont even want to step foot on their soil.
He pressed the comparison further, suggesting that a more conservative media landscape would erode basic liberties. Do we want the United States of America to become like Russia? North Korea? he added. Do we want the United States of America to become like China, where you dont have freedom of thought political freedom the ability to read, watch, and absorb the media and information that you want to consume and take in?
Paramounts chief executive, David Ellison, is the son of Oracle founder and prominent Trump supporter Larry Ellison, a fact Acosta cited as evidence of a broader ideological realignment. Paramount already controls CBS News, which recently installed The Free Press founder Bari Weiss as CBS News editor-in-chief, a move widely seen as a modest corrective to the networks longstanding liberal tilt.
Do we want to have a situation where you have a giant merger of CBS and CNN pumping out propaganda every day, saying how great Donald Trump is, how great his poll numbers are? Acosta asked, portraying any rightward shift as inherently propagandistic. I mean, if thats what were going to see from this monstrosity of a combined CBS and CNN under the leadership if you want to call it that of Bari Weiss, is that what theyre going to pump out over the airwaves? Is that what theyre going to pump out over CNN?
He went on to caricature potential coverage of Trump in apocalyptic terms, dismissing it with coarse language. That Donald Trump is the second coming of Abraham Lincoln, or as he likes to put it out on the campaign trail, that hes more popular, that hes a greater president than Abraham Lincoln and George Washington? What a crock of shit, he said. And do we want that crock of shit going out over the airwaves of CBS News on a daily basis, where the anchor of the CBS Evening News recently ended his broadcast and said, We salute you, Marco Rubio?
Acosta speculated that Jennings could be elevated to marquee roles, such as anchoring the CBS Evening News or Anderson Cooper 360, and that he would allegedly shower Trump with praise. I mean, what kind of crazy Stranger Things upside-down world are we going to become if thats the kind of news and information that we have pumping out over the airwaves in this country? It sounds to me that thats exactly what Donald Trump wants, he said. All you have to do is go inside his twisted mind.
He further mocked Trumps social media activity and stamina while suggesting the president would somehow intimidate major corporations into serving as his mouthpieces. I mean, just the other day, he was tweeting about sending a hospital boat to Greenland. He cant even stay awake at his own events, he continued. And this is the guy whos going to cow these giant media properties into combining into one another and becoming propaganda arms of his administration. I mean, what kind of crazy 1984 shit is this?
Even as Acosta cast the potential merger as a march toward state-controlled media, internal unease at CNN was also reported, with staffers reportedly anxious about the networks editorial future under new ownership. Employees at CNN also have real concerns regarding their networks future after Paramount won the bidding war, CNN senior media analyst Brian Stelter reported, underscoring how deeply entrenched some in the legacy press are against any move that might dilute their long-standing progressive dominance of the airwaves.
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