The Trump administration is systematically silencing its dissenters on the airwaves. Trump’s used his power over the FCC to remove Stephen Colbert, and more recently, Jimmy Kimmel, but that is just the beginning.
If you think his lawsuits against newspapers and his defunding of PBS and NPR were bad, just wait. His FCC is currently allowing a monopoly over local television stations across the country to go through.
There is no more antitrust left in the Federal Government; monopoly is the new goal in this administration. And TV is Trump’s oldest and most cherished plaything.
Trump on Truth Social:
Currently, Trump’s FCC is loosening the government’s limits on broadcast station ownership. This is so Nexstar Media Group Inc., the largest owner of local tv stations in the US, can buy its rival Tegna, and become the largest TV broadcaster in America (by far).
Once this merger goes through, this one station to rule them all, will be able to wield unprecedented power over broadcasting. If there is a show they (or Trump) don’t like the sound of, they’ll simply threaten to pull it from their local stations, and poof! Shows that Trump does not approve of…cease to exist.
“President Trump is fundamentally reshaping the media landscape,” FCC Chair Brendan Carr told CNBC in July. “The media industry across this country needs a course correction.”
If you can threaten a company the size of Disney (which owns ABC/Kimmel) to pull a show, who can’t you threaten and silence? This will usher in an era of state-controlled media and authoritarianism, the likes America has never seen before.
An era of state-controlled media is being ushered in. Shades of Orwell's 1984 and the Ministry of Truth, where one voice is all that is allowed to be broadcast.
Once the State starts cancelling shows with impunity, what does the First Amendment even mean anymore?
Trump may not be well-versed in history, morality, or science, but he does have a keen understanding of one business very well: television.
You may be thinking; “Well…TV is just ‘legacy media’ it’s a dying platform, so who cares?”
Remember who Trump repeatedly has come to the Whitehouse to grovel and praise him on a regular basis. The tech giants, who control all the distribution of the rest of the media across the world.
