NEWS: The secret White House plan to censor the free press
The President will have a personal watchdog monitor "bias" at CBS News.
Bottom Line Up Front:
In a matter of days, the Trump administration has moved from media bashing to media control. In a stunning escalation, the FCC revealed that a “bias monitor” would be installed above CBS News who will report directly to the President of the United States. According to the FCC chairman, this is just the beginning of a larger plan to reshape American media.
WHAT HAPPENED
Late last week, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), now chaired by longtime Trump loyalist Brendan Carr, approved the $8.4 billion merger of Paramount Global (parent company of CBS) and Skydance Media. But approval came with heavy-handed conditions: CBS had to commit to rooting out perceived “liberal bias,” eliminate its internal diversity initiatives, and — most alarmingly — appoint a watchdog.
“One of the things they’re going to have to do is put an ombudsman in place for two years,” Carr said in a CNBC interview. “So basically a bias monitor that will report directly to the president.”
Let that sink in. For the first time in modern American history, a White House-approved media monitor will have direct oversight of a news organization and will report not to independent regulators, but to the President himself. Carr’s justification? The new CBS owners “came in and said, ‘It’s time for a change. We’re going to reorient it towards getting rid of bias.’” That, he claimed, “made the difference for us.”
Until now the White House has been tight-lipped about plans to follow through on Trump’s broader threats against the press, but with the FCC announcement, the administration’s secret effort to muzzle news organizations came into clearer focus: “President Trump is fundamentally reshaping the media landscape,” Carr announced. “The media industry across this country needs a course correction.”
WHAT IT MEANS
This is a grenade lobbed into the First Amendment. The FCC — a government body that regulates broadcast networks using public airwaves — is now essentially conditioning its decision making on whether outlets sufficiently flatter the President. And with this new precedent, Trump might be able to extract concessions from almost any network: install a bias cop, or risk having your broadcast license revoked.
I struggle to think of historical comparisons. No previous presidential administration has mandated direct editorial oversight of a media organization as a condition of doing business with a watchdog reporting directly to the President himself. This is a throwback to totalitarian information ministries, not constitutional democracy.
The lone Democrat on the FCC, Anna Gomez, blasted the decision as “cowardly capitulation” and “never-before-seen controls over newsroom decisions and editorial judgment, in direct violation of the First Amendment and the law.”
And this was no isolated incident. At the same time, Carr has moved to reopen “bias” complaints against Disney, Comcast, and others, in what now appears to be a coordinated government campaign against noncompliant outlets.
WHAT’S NEXT
Trump has derided the press for years as the “enemy of the people.” His supporters said it was a figure of speech. His detractors sounded the alarm that censorship was coming. I hope people now understand that all the hyperventilating was justified.
If the FCC is wielding its extensive powers over the airwaves to enforce ideological obedience, then we’re entering an era of government-approved news … of hard censorship, set from the Oval Office itself.
The White House scheme is now out in the open. The administration admits it plans on “fundamentally reshaping” the media landscape in ways clearly designed to favor the President, suppress the opposition, and reward loyalists. Placing a Trump watchman over CBS News is just the beginning.
If this continues, we can strike the first word in “free speech.”
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Let's look at the real "manipulators" behind these decisions: Thiel, Vought, Miller et al.. They are the real danger that we cannot lose sight of.
Hmmm... I wonder what the "bias monitor" at Fox has been doing with their time?