We have all spent a lot of time over the past year watching the Ellison Dynasty exert its influence over global media. I managed to keep my thoughts to myself during the Warner Brothers / Discovery wars between Paramount and Netflix, not knowing who would inflict more change/harm on the things I cared about in the movie and media universe. But then Pete Hegseth had to step to the podium this weekend doing what all Trumpers feel the need to do, which is ungracefully lash out any anyone in the media who voices an opinion that does not favor their latest escapade. In this case, its more than an escapade, its a fucking WAR and its impact is being felt on an increasing basis daily, initially with oil prices reaching over $100/barrel and gasoline prices spiking by 27% ($0.81/gal) since the unauthorized and badly planned/executed war began. For a guy who paved his path to the Pentagon through a Fox News Weekend Report show, its amazing how little journalistic freedom means to Hegseth. He knows his boss expects nothing less than media belligerence to any naysayers, but even he went too far over this particular weekend. Reacting to multiple reports by various news outlets, he focused his ire on CNN because they had the audacity to suggest that the Pentagon’s plans for the war were nonexistent and that no contingencies existed for the blockage of the Strait of Hormuz. All evidence to the contrary, Hegseth railed that, of course, they had expected the Strait to get blocked by the Iranians, ignoring the obvious reality that Epic Fury was supposed to be so epic and so furious that Iran was supposed to shrivel up and pay Trump some sort of bounty for helping them shed their religious fundamentalist ideology once and for all. He declared the reporting by CNN to be “unserious” reporting.
But then Hegseth went further in deriding CNN by saying, “the sooner David Ellison takes over that network….the better.” OMG! That is right up there with Brendan Carr, the FCC Commissioner talking about “the authoritarian’s dream” when he referenced bringing the hammer down on Jimmy Kimmel before the public went crazy over the suggestion that the government might try to censor free political satire…even in the mildest forms that had been used by Kimmel. I don’t know why, but that all got me thinking about a very impactful book that was written in 1948 that I read years ago, Alan Paton’s Cry, the Beloved Country. The book centers on several interwoven themes: Racial Injustice and Apartheid South Africa. It depicts the deep structural inequalities of South Africa’s racial system — the degradation of Black South Africans through land dispossession, poverty, and systemic oppression. Paton wrote it just before apartheid was formally codified, and it serves as both a lament and a warning. It’s about a broken society, fear and hope, corruption and innocence, faith and suffering. Strangely enough, for my current thought process, the story is about a breakdown of the traditional tribal bonds that kept Black South African society on track, and what I am feeling is that Hegseth and Carr’s comments point to the imposition of tribal mentality (political tribalism) on our traditional American culture that is making things fall apart for all of us.
David Ellison, son of mega-billionaire and huge Trump supporter, Larry Ellison (currently the sixth richest man with $218B), founded his flagship media entity, Skydance Media, in 2006 and later merged it with Paramount Global in 2025, forming Paramount Skydance, where he serves as Chairman and CEO. The combined entity includes Paramount Pictures (the century-old Hollywood film studio), CBS (broadcast television network), CBS News (where Ellison appointed conservative commentator Bari Weiss as editor-in-chief), Paramount+ (the related streaming platform), Nickelodeon (the cable television network aimed primarily at children and young audiences), MTV (the music and youth culture network), and other cable networks. And, of course, now Paramount Skydance has successfully bested Netflix in the acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, which is still pending approval and finalization, but is most likely to achieve that goal given Larry’s money and Trump’s enthusiasm for slanting the media in his direction. The Warner Bros. Discovery deal for approximately $111 billion (yes, it’s another financially mindless transaction like Twitter/X), covers properties including HBO, Warner Bros. studios, DC Comics, and CNN. If the WBD deal closes, Ellison would control one of the largest media empires in the world, spanning film, broadcast TV, cable, streaming, news, and sports content and its cultural impact will be tremendous.
David Ellison’s political profile is genuinely complex and has been a subject of considerable debate. His stated views are that he is Center-Left to Centrist. In 2022, Ellison described himself as “a socially liberal person,” and as recently as early 2024, he donated over $929,000 to Joe Biden’s reelection effort, along with more than $100,000 to the Democratic National Committee. He has told reporters he has “no interest” in moving into the political spectrum, saying he wants to focus on building his business. And yet, his growing relationship with Trump suggests otherwise. Ellison has been a repeated visitor to the White House during Trump’s second term. He was spotted sitting ringside with Trump at UFC fights (a MAGA and Trump favorite pass-time) in April and June 2025, shortly before Paramount acquired exclusive UFC media rights. Trump has publicly called the Ellisons “friends of mine” and “big supporters of mine.” His Actions at CBS News certainly make him seem like a serious Trumpster. Since the Skydance-Paramount merger closed in August 2025, CBS News has been accused of kowtowing to Trump under Bari Weiss’s editorial leadership with staff cuts, conservative on-screen talent additions, and shelving of at least one story critical of the Trump administration. Critics of David Ellison argue that his actions speak louder than his previously stated values. Press freedom advocates point out that when the Trump administration demanded editorial concessions from Skydance in exchange for merger approval, Ellison obliged, including appointing a “bias ombudsman” and making changes at CBS News. CBS News is now the sanitized version of Fox News.
Ellison has pledged editorial independence at both CBS and CNN, saying he wants to reach “the 70% of Americans that identify as center-left and center-right” and be “in the truth business.” A source close to him has pushed back on characterizations of a political shift, calling the narrative that his businesses will be used to advance a political agenda “a conspiracy theory.” The most accurate picture is probably this: Ellison is a pragmatic centrist who has made significant accommodations to the Trump administration as a business necessity to get massive deals approved. Whether those accommodations reflect genuine political evolution, opportunism, or simply the price of doing business in the current regulatory environment remains contested and likely a mix of all three. But when someone like Hegseth says the words that everyone is thinking and yet most rational and intelligent people would keep to themselves, it gives me pause. This goes back to Brendan Carr’s “authoritarian’s dream”. The media is sacred.
This isn’t really a settled or universally accepted idea. It’s more of a claim that different people interpret and debate in very different ways. The case for media having a special status stems from it’s characterization as the “Fourth Estate” — an informal but powerful check on government, business, and institutions. The idea is that a free press serves democracy by informing citizens, exposing corruption, and holding power accountable. In the U.S., this is reflected in the First Amendment’s specific protection of press freedom, which signals that journalism occupies a unique civic role beyond ordinary commerce or entertainment. For those in the tradition of civic journalism, a free and independent press is seen as essential to self-governance — without it, citizens can’t make informed decisions, and power goes unchecked. Historically, authoritarian regimes almost universally move to control or suppress the press early on, which reinforces the idea that media freedom is foundational to everything else.
But trust in the media is collapsing. Large portions of the public in many countries view mainstream media as biased, corporate-controlled, or ideologically captured, and hardly a neutral arbiter of truth. “Media” is also an enormously broad category. Nickelodeon, MTV, tabloids, social media platforms, and investigative newspapers are all “media”. Lumping them together as sacred doesn’t hold up well with some, but I would suggest that my love for all these forms of media as cultural influencers still makes it all sacred. Commercial pressures have always shaped what gets covered and how, so its a complicated the idealistic picture. The rise of partisan media makes it hard to argue that the press functions as a neutral public good any more.
Still, any way I look at it, I say, Cry, the Beloved Media.