If you only just started paying attention to the inner workings of the media industry, you might think America’s information environment transformed overnight.
In the past few months, a president extracted settlements from media giants as his apparatchiks vowed state retribution against his opponents – all as they defunded public media at a time when the president’s biggest boosters own the algorithms that decide what information is amplified and suppressed.
Meanwhile, media companies are merging into ever-larger behemoths, some have muzzled White House critics as their companies seek presidential favors, and the White House is reportedly brokering a deal to hand yet another social media platform over to his billionaire allies.
And now, a media industry billionaire has placed CBS News under the control of the conservative provocateur Bari Weiss, who is empowered to shroud her culture war and oligarch-friendly economics in what she calls “journalism that is fair, fearless, and factual”.
But as abrupt as this Orwellian turn may seem, it is no sudden pivot – it is instead the culmination of a scheme launched a half-century ago by some of America’s most influential power brokers, as our new book Master Plan exposes. Sketched out in never-before-reported documents, this plot aimed to destroy accountability journalism and make news outlets into champions rather than adversaries of power.
Three Qatari officials have been killed in a car crash near the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, according to the Qatari Embassy in Cairo.
President Trump’s plans to use the Justice Department to seek revenge against his perceived enemies may have just hit a major roadblock. Earlier this month, Memphis federal district court judge Waverly D. Crenshaw, Jr. issued an opinion in the criminal case against Kilmar Abrego Garcia in response to a motion to dismiss for vindictive and selective prosecution.
Israel must allow tents and caravans to immediately be delivered to the Gaza Strip, a United Nations expert says, as displaced Palestinians returning to the north of the bombarded territory have found their homes and neighbourhoods destroyed.
Overnight Russian missile and drone strikes have caused power cuts in large parts of Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, and eight other regions.
Israel carried out intense airstrikes on southern Lebanon early Saturday, killing one person, wounding seven and briefly cutting a highway that links Beirut with parts of south Lebanon, the Health Ministry said.
As the government shutdown drags on, Smithsonian museums, the National Zoo and other facilities are the latest to be caught in the fray, with the federal trust announcing the closure of all of its sites beginning on Sunday.
The most popular and potentially unifying Palestinian leader — Marwan Barghouti — is not among the prisoners Israel intends to free in exchange for hostages held by Hamas under the new Gaza ceasefire deal.
