Kissing Trump's Ass Actually Not Going So Well For WaPo, LAT, CBS News!

[erronis]

https://www.wonkette.com/p/kissing-trumps-ass-actually-not-going
Robyn Pennacchia

If you couldn't tell already by the hundreds of thousands of subscribers they lost.

In the run-up to the 2024 election both Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos and LA Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong decided that neither of their newspapers would do an endorsement -- with both asserting a desire to be seen bias-free. Not long after that, the opinion pages of both papers began a marked shift to the right.

How has it worked out so far? Have the owners managed to replace the hundreds of thousands of readers who canceled their subscriptions with legions of loyal Trumpists, eager to read editorials about, as Bezos put it, supporting "personal liberties and the free market"?

They have not! A recent report from the Alliance for Audited Media found that WaPo's circulation decreased by 21 percent, while the LA Times's is down by 19.8 percent. At the same time, Status's Oliver Darcy reports that every news show over at CBS, recently purchased by David Ellison -- the son of Trump's billionaire buddy Larry Ellison -- is also tanking in the ratings.

Via Media Matters:

Status' Oliver Darcy got ahold of some CBS News ratings data from the first quarter of 2026, and it is brutal. CBS Evening News has lost 7% of viewers year-over-year, placing it "on track for its lowest-rated first quarter of the 21st century in both total viewers and the advertiser-coveted 25-54 demographic," while CBS Mornings plummeted 13% and "is pacing toward its lowest-rated quarter on record in both total audience and the key demo." Meanwhile, the audiences of competitor shows at ABC News and NBC News grew over the same period.

Gosh, and we just would have assumed that putting Bari Weiss at the helm would have ... oh, who are we kidding. Have you seen Tony Dokoupil? No one asked for that. No one asked for that at all.

. . .

[unblock]

1. People like bezos, Ellison, and musk are happy to take a loss here for gains elsewhere

They have multiple businesses and if they get a tax cut or a government contract or a merger approved or whatever, it's a win for them even if they effectively paid for it by taking a hit in a media business.

Twitter/x is not doing well at all and musk "overpaid" for it and yet he's still the richest man in the world and heading towards being the first trillionaire. Money well spent from his point of view.

Not the way any of this is supposed to work but this is what's going on these days.

[erronis]

3. I agree. The loss of a few million subscribers and advertising $s is offset by the opportunities to grift.

[TheRickles]

7. To grift, and to propagandize.

[DBoon]

14. It's worth it to them to shut down opposing positions.

Monopolists buy out competitors just to shut them down.

Bezos, Musk, Ellison and friends want to eliminate liberal progressive political options.

[Historic NY]

2. All they got was a brown nose

[Blue Owl]

4. Let 'em all fucking die

And we’ll display their rotted carcasses as a lesson for future generations who suck up to criminal pedophile authoritarians

[littlemissmartypants]

6. ❤️ RESIST!! ✊️

[UTUSN]

5. They ought to know the history of appeasement.

[littlemissmartypants]

8. Who does not love Wonkette? Thanks for sharing this, erronis. ❤️

[nikatnyte]

9. LA Times isn't that bad

Yes, during the election they tried playing "both sides" (which is always pathetic when it comes to Trump), and I almost cancelled my subscription. But since then their content and op-eds is far more balanced, almost always leaning left. They don't pull many punches when it comes to Trump, even if their news reporting could be more open about what is happening. They now openly call out his stolen-election lie as a lie, not a "misstatement" or similar weak euphemism.

[dobleremolque]

10. The whole point of their takeover and ownership is not to

thrive financially, but to destroy credible, reliable sources of vetted information. After that, they become nothing more than voluntary propaganda outlets.

[Mr. Mustard 2023]

11. Their motive is control over the airwaves, so

sure profiting would be nice, but if the news programs disappear they will have met their primary goal. What they'll do is drastically downsize, turn programming into Republican propaganda and break even. Mission accomplished.

[IbogaProject]

12. And people are leaving legacy newspapers and broadcast tv in droves

So to be balanced it would help to see comparables. I feel bad for the everyday employees who always are the ones who lose the most when rich folks play fast and loose with common sense in business decisions.

[Kid Berwyn]

13. John Lennon understood exactly why, way back when.

[NNadir]

15. The billionaires probably couldn't care less. Their goal was not to make money, but rather to replace news with...

...propaganda.