Is the US media ecosystem more and more a cesspool of right-wing billionaire propaganda?

[noname223]

I am currently reading an article of Foreign Affairs.
The Price of American Authoritarianism
What Can Reverse Democratic Decline?
by Steven Levitsky, Lucan A. Way, and Daniel Ziblatt

I think this also how most German intellectuals are thinking about the US currently.

The Price of American Authoritarianism

What can reverse democratic decline?

www.foreignaffairs.com

I liked the following passage.

As in other competitive authoritarian regimes, changes in media coverage have also been driven by government measures to ensure that key media outlets are controlled by supporters. In Hungary, the Orban government took a series of steps to push independent media outlets into the hands of political allies: for example, it leveraged its control over licensing and lucrative government contracts to persuade Magyar Telekom—the parent company of the country's most-read news website, Origo—to fire the site's editor and later put it up for sale. Flush with cash from government-allied banks, a private company with ties to Orban easily outbid competitors and gained control of Origo. Like the more than 500 other Hungarian news outlets now owned by Orban loyalists, Origo ceased critical coverage of the government.

A similar process is underway in the United States as Trump's allies move to take over major news outlets with assistance from the administration. Skydance Media's acquisition of Paramount—greenlighted by an FCC that until recently tended to disapprove of big media mergers—gave the pro-Trump Ellison family control of CBS, which subsequently shifted its programming to the right. The Ellisons have sought to acquire a newly formulated U.S. version of TikTok in addition to Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns CNN. Given that Fox News and X are already owned by wealthy right-wing figures, these moves have the potential to place a considerable share of legacy and social media platforms in the hands of pro-Trump billionaires.

The far-right media outlets were always more influential than the leftwing outlets. Trump's policies are that unpopular that only rigging the system in his favor will help him. The right-wing narratives stick way better than the leftwing counterparts (in case they exist). The media outlets are shifting to the right. It is sad so many act opportunistly but it is a fact it is easier to make money with rightwing propaganda than to question authorites, capital and the powerful.

 

[Dejected 55]

This is a sister to the other thread... When media attempts to ignore a large segment of the population in order to push one ideology, it necessarily helps to create its opposition. Liberal media slant for decades is what forced right-wing media to develop its own transmission... Right-wing, even non-extreme views, were largely shut out for decades leaving a lot of the western population feeling ignored and minimized... so when it became more possible for right-wing to find audience through the internet, there was a thirst for this!

Unfortunately, the moderate and reasonable people weren't the ones best positioned to seize the opportunity... it's always going to be the wealthy and/or the extreme views best poised... and the ignored minimized people are forced to choose between the media they know ignores them VS the new right-wing media that at least gives lip service.

The thing is... that liberal media was also only giving lip service... and many on the left know that they are being marginalized too... but it's harder to have opposition to liberal media with semi-liberal media... whereas the ignored right-wing got more traction with more obvious differences in ideology.

Trying to eradicate opposition is how you ensure you have opposition. The better society would always be open to all the people and all the ideas and the good ideas would rise to the top and the crazy ideas would be snuffed out quickly because they would be out front for all to see and evaluate honestly.

Liberal media created the extreme right by trying to pretend it didn't exist and sweeping it under the rug and diminishing all the people who just wanted to be heard.