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The Latest Corporate Media and Telecom Trend? Caving to Trump
We expect our media to act as a check on abuses of power. Instead, these companies are enabling the Trump regime even as it’s actively and openly attacking journalism and undermining free speech.
Jul 13, 2025
In the Trump 2.0 era, media conglomerates aren’t just reporting news but making it as well—and for all of the wrong reasons.
Companies including Paramount (which owns CBS) and Disney (which owns ABC) have earned headlines for capitulating to the political thuggery of the White House and its improperly subservient federal agencies.
In December 2024, ABC News caved in advance of U.S. President Donald Trump’s inauguration, paying $15 million (plus $1 million in legal fees) to resolve Trump’s defamation lawsuit against the network and its anchor George Stephanopoulos, who had imprecisely said that the president had been found “liable for rape” in a civil trial in New York. (In fact, Trump had been found liable under New York State’s definition of “sexual abuse.”)
And in July, Paramount Chairwoman Shari Redstone paid Trump $16 million to settle a frivolous lawsuit the president brought against CBS News. Trump wrongly claimed that “60 Minutes” deceptively edited an interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris, allegedly causing him “mental anguish.” Redstone’s decision to settle the case (driven by her desire to gain official approval of a multibillion-dollar merger with Skydance) has sparked righteous discontent among CBS reporters and producers who see the ostensible bribe as a betrayal of the news organization’s journalistic principles and free-speech rights.
The Capitulation Trend
These disturbing examples of media capitulation are not isolated events but part of a worrisome trend across all sectors of the U.S. media and telecommunications industry. The nation’s largest telecommunications companies are busy pandering to the Trump regime as well. In recent months, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon have abandoned prior commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion in hopes of winning approval of various mergers, acquisitions, and other regulatory requests before federal agencies.
A series of Trump executive orders seeking to erase DEI programs in the public and private sectors prompted the capitulations in the telecommunications sector. In a stunning reversal of their previous commitments, companies have fallen into line.
In a July 8 letter to Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr, T-Mobile announced that it has scrapped all DEI initiatives, as it looks to the agency to green-light its proposed acquisitions of UScellular’s wireless operations and of internet service provider Metronet. Previously, the wireless giant had “dissolved” its partnership with several civil-rights organizations that had helped the company develop inclusive corporate-governance practices.
While many U.S. media institutions curried favor with political figures during previous administrations, these companies’ surrender to the tyranny of Trumpism poses an existential crisis of an entirely different scale—one that cuts to the core of our democracy.
Earlier, in May, the FCC blessed Verizon’s proposed merger with Frontier Communications. Buried in the FCC’s approval order—but proudly touted in the agency’s press release—is the claim that Verizon got the deal done only after promising to end its own DEI programs in a letter filed with the FCC just a day before it received agency approval.
In March, AT&T ended its DEI-focused employee training and cut off funding for the Trevor Project, a suicide-prevention group for LGBTQIA+ youth, and Turn Up the Love, a series of Pride events that partners with musical artists.
“In this political climate, there’s no such thing right now as corporate reckoning with systems of oppression,” said Free Press vice president of policy and general counsel Matt Wood. “There’s no T-Mobile as a magenta maverick. The only colors today are green and white: chasing dollars, and appeasing baseless white grievances over so-called reverse racism.”
Cozying Up to Political Power
And it’s not just phone giants that are following the craven path Disney and Paramount have forged. Caving to Trump has become a pattern across the entire establishment media sector, from broadcasting and entertainment companies to online platforms and newspaper owners.
While many U.S. media institutions curried favor with political figures during previous administrations, these companies’ surrender to the tyranny of Trumpism poses an existential crisis of an entirely different scale—one that cuts to the core of our democracy.
The wealthiest media companies have become so deeply embedded within the power structures of society—and so entangled with and dependent on government contracts and other official favors—that it’s not surprising to see them bend to the whims of an authoritarian leader. But that doesn’t make it any less dangerous.
We expect our media to act as a check on abuses of power. Instead, these companies are enabling the Trump regime even as it’s actively and openly attacking journalism and undermining free speech. That large telecommunications companies have joined the cowardly capitulations exposes the deep structural rot at the root of our entire media, journalism, and communications system.
These failures raise important questions about a captured media-policy infrastructure—fueled by hundreds of millions of dollars in fees to corporate lobbyists, lawyers, and trade groups—that has allowed a relatively small group of media and telecommunications companies to become this enormous.
As the Trump administration—with the help of a compliant FCC—attempts to roll back limits to media consolidation, it’s worth recognizing that bigger media isn’t better for the American people and our democracy.
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Why Is the Media Normalizing Nuclear War and Its Effects on US Populations?
The meme-contour of recent articles seems to invite a casual shoulder shrug with respect to the dark road that we’re now heading down and to minimize the powder keg of conflict looming in the Middle East.
Jul 08, 2025
As a political journalist, I typically monitor about six or seven print publications and a somewhat absurd number of online ones. But I recently noticed a disturbing trend—a slew of articles with titles like “Apocalyptic map shows worst U.S. states to live in during nuclear war” or “Nuclear Fallout: Is Your State Safe?” Then there’s my personal favorite “10 U.S. States with the Best Odds of Surviving Nuclear Fallout and the Science Behind Their Safety.”
The second article informs us in a blithe and matter-of-fact tone that “recent geopolitical tensions have reignited concerns over nuclear safety across the United States. According to a detailed risk assessment featured on MSN, states along the West Coast (California, Oregon, Washington) and East Coast (Florida, Maine, Tennessee, Alabama, Ohio) have lower immediate fallout risks compared to central states.” And then, in a tone that could well be used to describe the best air conditioners to buy this summer, we’re cautioned that: “Even states considered safer are not guaranteed refuge from longer-term global impacts such as nuclear winter and widespread humanitarian crises.” Well good to know. Now we can all plan our summer travel accordingly. (As a brief aside, it should be noted that the MSN risk assessment article referred to is no longer available and has been yanked from the website. Curious.)
Articles such as these nudge us toward the psychologically unhealthy space of accepting a situation that should never be accepted.
My first reaction upon seeing these articles was a kind of visceral astonishment. The tone was jarring and, frankly, appalling. Were these perhaps AI-generated pieces coming from a digital source that has no real idea of the emotional resonance required to discuss nuclear war? Quite possibly. Does this point to a design flaw in AI that will never really be eradicated? Also, quite possible. My second more measured reaction was that such articles might inadvertently expose flaws in the veneer of the rational calculus that underlies the basis for what we sometimes generously called modern “civilization.”
So, what’s behind this disturbing attempt on the part of various media outlets to normalize the prospect of nuclear war? For starters, articles like these speak to a deep cognitive dissonance around this topic that’s been evident in sociopolitical environment ever since the horror of Hiroshima. The meme-contour of these articles seems to invite a casual shoulder shrug with respect to the dark road that we’re now heading down and to minimize the powder keg of conflict looming in the Middle East. The matter-of-fact tonality about the possibility of nuclear Armageddon is deeply troubling. Articles such as these nudge us toward the psychologically unhealthy space of accepting a situation that should never be accepted.
Unpacking the Psychological Roots of Militarism
The Scottish psychiatrist R.D. Laing described our socially conditioned and sometimes blithe acceptance of war and militarism as a form of mass psychosis, noting that “insanity is a perfectly rational adjustment to an insane world.” In a brilliant essay on this topic, clinical psychologist Frank MacHovec noted that “Wartime behavior deviates markedly from cross-cultural social norms and values. The irrationality and emotionality of war is a radical departure from accepted normal behavior... Wartime behavior of and by itself meets current diagnostic criteria for a severe mental disorder.”
MacHovec goes on to discuss war as a function of Freudian death instinct:
We award medals to and hail as heroes or martyrs those who kill more of the enemy. One nation’s freedom fighter is another’s terrorist, even though it may be the same behavior… Victims are dehumanized into objects, and robot-like violence depersonalizes the aggressor in the process… Defense mechanisms of denial, externalization, projection, rationalization, and splitting block reality testing have the effect of reducing anxiety and protecting against stress. Violence then becomes part of the array of defense mechanisms. Emotion overrides reason and logic in public education and controlled news media that reinforce aggression.
Do Governments Persuade Us to Accept War as “Normal”?
As if our own unruly and erratic human impulses weren’t enough cause for concern, when it comes to the application of violence-as-solution, Western and other governments (often in a position of power as the result of war settlements and therefore having “something to defend”) spend a considerable amount of time and effort normalizing war in both popular culture and the political sphere. Here in the U.S., the CIA funds ceremonies and rituals in venues such as NFL games designed to promote acceptance of the so-called glories of war. Hollywood does its part with movies like Top Gun that position the violent extermination of enemies as noble or brave. In fairness to a broader perspective, we can and should posit that, as individuals, those who fight in wars are often in fact noble or brave in specific situations. Certainly, they have been persuaded to and are willing to risk their lives for a cause and this takes both courage and selflessness.
That said, these qualities of selflessness are often exploited to persuade us that that war itself is somehow an acceptable solution to periodic disagreements that arise between the governments of nations. Adding nuclear acceptance to the mix is when the notion of more severe psychological aberration comes in. Far from being “diplomacy by other means,” our best historians have shown us that wars often benefit economic elites in power. Even worse, modern warfare has shown a disturbing tendency to focus on harming civilian populations. History reveals that, here in the U.S., elites have at times funded both sides of a conflict or stood to gain from both supplying armaments and rebuilding in the aftermath. We see this in extremis in President Donald Trump’s bizarre plans to turn Gaza into a resort area.
Clearly, the corporate profit-driven machinery of the political establishment and military-industrial-complex can now steamroller over public opinion with cavalier impunity, aided and abetted by both political parties.
The cold hard fact is that many wars are fought for all the wrong reasons: territorial domination of economically important resources (such as oil in the case of Iran and Iraq); economic benefits associated with supply chains; or the mere continuation of empire. But when the possibility of nuclear war becomes either conveniently ignored, gamed, or normalized by any given administration including those of Presidents Trump or Joe Biden and with willing complicity from the mainstream media, then I suggest it crosses the line into the territory that Laing alludes to. It also suggests a potent reason why trust in government is at an all-time low.
Another angle on the psychology of this dynamic is offered by Dr. Kathie Malley-Morrison, a former professor of psychology at Boston University and a member of Massachusetts for Peace Action. In “No, I Can’t Help! Psychic Numbing and How to Confront It, ” she provides a valuable perspective on odd and even bizarre psychological responses to the nuclear war threat that involve either magical thinking around notions of “surviving” or garden-variety denial:
Warnings about the dangers inherent in the availability of nuclear weapons in Russia, the United States, its allies, and other nations can be heard right, left, and center across the political spectrum… Why, then, do we not hear of massive actions against the continued development and sales of nuclear weapons, and the threats by nuclear power countries to use them? One of the answers is psychic numbing—a psychological phenomenon that can affect both individuals and entire cultures in ways that allow atrocities—and existential threats—to grow and spread.
Malley-Morrison points out that psychic numbing is also called “compassion fade.” The article goes on to clarify further:
At the individual level, psychic numbing is a psychological process of desensitization to the pain and suffering of others, particularly as the number of people experiencing pain and suffering increases… Exposure to information about genocides or nuclear holocausts or other catastrophes involving more than a very few people may lead to an emotional shutdown; the very idea of such horrors can seem too painful to tolerate.
She then cites the work of Robert Jay Lifton, an American psychiatrist, while observing that “whole societies or cultures can also be subject to psychic numbing. Within militarized societies, numbing, desensitization, and a general sense of pseudo-inefficacy— the feeling that some problems are so beyond one’s control that one is helpless to solve them—may even be encouraged.”
War and unchecked militarism are unquestionably one of the greatest causes of human suffering. Is humanity now at an existential crossroads where we must simply reject it as an option and wake up to the folly of our own collective self-programming? Given the realities of large-scale polycrisis, a third world war with nuclear, AI, and autonomous weapons in the mix is the last thing humanity needs. Further, it seems abundantly clear that, as governments around the world falter in their efforts to effectively deal with the multi-headed hydra of polycrisis, many are once again falling back on a familiar pattern of state-sanctioned violence against other nations as a “solution” and a means to bolster the power of incumbency.
Sadly, even when large segments of the populace oppose militarism (as is clearly the case here in the U.S.) it has become abundantly clear that our own government will do whatever it pleases without regard to democratic input or sentiment. This might lead us to wonder whether a 2014 Princeton University study stating that true democracy in the U.S. is a thing of the past might not have been painfully accurate. Clearly, the corporate profit-driven machinery of the political establishment and military-industrial-complex can now steamroller over public opinion with cavalier impunity, aided and abetted by both political parties. And while a certain situational adaptability is likely one of the best qualities of the human species, paradoxically, it might also be one of the worse.
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Bill Moyers Exemplified Public TV at Its Best
From his reporting on issues like the Iran-Contra scandal to his critique of corporate media, Moyers worked to hold the powerful to account and provide a voice for the unheard.
Jul 03, 2025
Bill Moyers died last week at the age of 91. His career began as a close aide to President Lyndon B. Johnson, serving as LBJ’s de facto chief of staff and then his press secretary, but Moyers spent most of his life in journalism. After the Johnson administration, he was briefly publisher of Long Island’s Newsday, which won two Pulitzers under his tenure before he was forced out for being too left (Extra!, 1–2/96).
Most of Moyers’ journalism, however, appeared on public television, an institution he helped launch as a member of the 1967 Carnegie Commission, which called for public TV to be “a forum for controversy and debate” that would “provide a voice for groups in the community that may otherwise be unheard” and “help us see America whole, in all its diversity.”
While public TV as a whole has often failed to live up to those ideas, Moyers exemplified them.
Consistently Critical
Moyers was a consistently critical voice on PBS. In 1987, his PBS special “The Secret Government: The Constitution in Crisis” offered a searing examination of the Iran-Contra scandal; he followed that up with an even deeper dive into the story three years later for “Frontline” with “High Crimes and Misdemeanors.”
Moyers’ 2007 documentary Buying the War, aired four years into the Iraq War, offered a critique of media failures in the run-up to war that was rarely heard in corporate media.
His independence made him a thorn in PBS‘ side. Robert Parry (FAIR.org, 9/13/11) explained:
When I was working at PBS “Frontline” in the early 1990s, senior producers would sometimes order up pre-ordained right-wing programs—such as a show denouncing Cuba’s Fidel Castro—to counter Republican attacks on the documentary series for programs the right didn’t like, such as Bill Moyers’ analysis of the Iran-Contra scandal.
In essence, the idea was to inject right-wing bias into some programming as “balance” to other serious journalism, which presented facts that Republicans found objectionable. That way, the producers could point to the right-wing show to prove their “objectivity” and, with luck, deter GOP assaults on PBS funding.
When Moyers hosted the news program “Now” (2002-04), the right complained—and PBS addressed the complaints by cutting the hour-long show to 30 minutes, while adding three right-wing programs: “Tucker Carlson: Unfiltered”; a show by conservative commentator Michael Medved; and the “Journal Editorial Report,“” featuring writers and editors from the arch-conservative Wall Street Journal editorial page (FAIR.org, 9/17/04).
Moyers was already heading out the door at “Now,” passing the torch to co-host David Brancaccio, who largely continued its hard-hitting tradition. Moyers returned to PBS in 2007 with a revival of his 1970s public affairs show, “Bill Moyers Journal.” When he retired that show in 2010, PBS also canceled “Now.” Moyers’ brand of independent journalism has been in short supply on PBS ever since.
Moyers diagnosed the problem in an appearance on Democracy Now! (6/8/11):
Sometimes self-censorship occurs because you’re looking over your shoulder, and you think, well, if I do this story or that story, it will hurt public broadcasting. Public broadcasting has suffered often for my sins, reporting stories the officials don’t want reported. And today, only… a very small percentage of funding for NPR and PBS comes from the government. But that accounts for a concentration of pressure and self-censorship. And only when we get a trust fund, only when the public figures out how to support us independently of a federal treasury, will we flourish as an independent medium.
‘Real Change Comes From Outside the Consensus’
Moyers shared FAIR’s critique of corporate media. On “Tavis Smiley” (5/13/11), he spoke about the elite bias in the media:
Television, including public television, rarely gives a venue to people who have refused to buy into the ruling ideology of Washington. The ruling ideology of Washington is we have two parties, they do their job, they do their job pretty well. The differences between them limit the terms of the debate. But we know that real change comes from outside the consensus. Real change comes from people making history, challenging history, dissenting, protesting, agitating, organizing.
Those voices that challenge the ruling ideology—two parties, the best of all worlds, do a pretty good job—those voices get constantly pushed back to the areas of the stage you can’t see or hear.
Jeff Cohen, FAIR’s founder, remembered Moyers’ impact on FAIR:
He was very supportive of FAIR from day one, and always offered encouragement to our staff. He was especially supportive of our studies of who gets to speak on PBS and NPR, and who doesn’t. He helped FAIR find funding for quarter-page advertorials on The New York Times op-ed page, which was then crucial and well-read media real estate, on various issues of corporate media bias or censorship. And he helped us find funding as well for a full-page ad in USA Today, exposing the distortions and lies of Rush Limbaugh.
Already some in corporate media are trying to push Moyers’ dissenting voice to the shadows. The New York Times (6/26/25), in a lengthy obituary devoted mostly to Moyers’ time working with LBJ, found no room to mention Moyers’ Iran-Contra work, or his repeated clashes with and criticisms of PBS. It did, however, find space to quote far-right website FrontPageMag.com, which in 2004 called Moyers a “sweater-wearing pundit who delivered socialist and neo-Marxist propaganda with a soft Texas accent.”
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