Two recent events reveal a great deal about what is rapidly unfolding in the United States. First, Melania Trump released a glossy documentary, Melania, chronicling her return to the White House. Amazon outbid competitors to secure the rights, spending $75 million in total. Current ticket sales suggest this was not purely a commercial venture.
Second, the Washington Post is preparing to cut up to 200 jobs early this month, including most of its foreign staff and a significant portion of its newsroom. Both Melania’s documentary and the Washington Post are backed by Jeff Bezos. His decisions—to invest in state propaganda while divesting from the institution meant to hold power accountable—show how capital and authoritarianism are joining forces to shape what the public reads and sees.
Trouble is also brewing at another legacy media outlet, CBS News. Last July, tech billionaire and Donald Trump ally Larry Ellison, along with his Hollywood producer son David, took over Paramount, which oversees CBS News. Bari Weiss, a former New York Times columnist and founder of the anti-woke blog The Free Press, was brought in to run CBS News. She quickly faced difficulties as she clashed with veterans of a network known for programs like 60 Minutes and tried to justify editorial decisions seen as favoring the Trump administration. Weiss is now expected to make further cuts to the newsroom.
What remains in these institutions, and what is emphasized, is telling. Weiss has announced the addition of numerous opinion writers and a focus on “scoops … crucially scoops of ideas. Scoops of explanation.” In short: more heat, less light. The Washington Post’s opinion section also reflects Bezos’s interests; he announced last year that its pages would “write every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets … viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.”
As a columnist, I don’t want to be a turkey voting for Christmas, but this obsession with opinion writing is a bad sign. Points of view should complement domestic and global news coverage, not replace it. News should not be used for partisan ends or cannibalized for commentary. Above all, this shift reflects a right-wing-owned media that no longer seeks to report on the world as it is but instead creates the world as it wishes it to be.
Talking points from the Trump regime, such as justifying the killing of “domestic terrorists” on U.S. streets, are treated as mere opinions that must be aired. Reality itself has become twisted and contestable. What people see and hear is questioned by a rolling commentary of lies and conjecture, given the appearance of truth through credible platforms.
This move from news to opinion is part of a broader trend. Politics has become a performance of narrative about who is friend and who is foe, tapping into public emotions by stirring fear and agitation. Channeling and emphasizing these feelings has become the media’s business, while actual power structures remain unchallenged. This is what Walter Benjamin called the “aestheticization of politics” under fascism.
In this age of tech-mogul-owned media, decisions everywhere reflect these fascistic tastes. Why invest in foreign coverage, an expensive and time-intensive effort, when the wider world is viewed as a place of enemies and freeloaders to be cut off or subdued? Who cares about long-form investigations into abuses of power or features exploring the lives of people elsewhere?
The result is a degradation of the very way humans communicate with and about each other. Knowledge of and affinity with others are excised under authoritarianism, as is artistic expression.What we see with Trump’s takeover of institutions like the Kennedy Center and the attacks on the Smithsonian is part of a broader pattern. Where some view these as long-standing, respected American establishments, the right sees them as relics of an old order to be remade. This is typical of coups—everything tied to the values and style of the previous system is torn out.
Autocracy steadily crushes and discards whatever it finds inconvenient. Billionaires, who have accumulated far more wealth and power than is safe for a democracy, control the machinery. Those who serve them are often misfits, useful idiots, or attention-seekers. This grinding down will be marketed as pragmatism—simply giving audiences what they want. In a world where traditional media finances are shaky and attention spans are frayed, they will claim that in-depth reporting is too costly for both institutions and audiences.
These challenges are real—journalism is an industry in crisis, and technology is eroding our capacity to learn and think—but it’s telling that the proposed solutions tend to push in one direction: amplifying more right-wing voices, prioritizing opinion over reporting, and weakening our ability to bear witness to a shared global experience.
It’s no coincidence that the tech moguls tasked with solving these problems are closely linked to figures tied to the Trump administration. That is a government that has declared war on journalism with its “fake news” rhetoric and is now even arresting reporters. Figures like the Ellisons or Bezos are not good-faith guardians of the media, concerned solely with journalism’s survival in a changing world. The whole situation reeks of corruption.
Frequently Asked Questions
Frequently Asked Questions US Media Propaganda and Influence Under Trump Tech Tycoons
Beginner Definition Questions
1 What does newsroom propaganda mean in this context
It refers to the concern that news reporting was intentionally skewed either through the promotion of a specific political agenda or the suppression of critical stories rather than providing balanced factbased journalism
2 Who are the tech tycoons mentioned and what do they have to do with news
This primarily refers to powerful figures like Elon Musk and to the influence of platforms like Facebook and YouTube They control major digital public squares where news is shared and consumed allowing them to shape discourse through content moderation policies algorithm changes and platform rules
3 Was there really less propaganda under Trump
The statement suggests a reduction in a specific type of perceived propagandaoften linked to a more confrontational populist style of political messaging from the administration and its allies However many analysts argue the media landscape shifted rather than improved with propaganda becoming more decentralized across social media and partisan outlets instead of being centrally pushed
Advanced Analytical Questions
4 If propaganda was cut back what replaced it in the media ecosystem
It was often replaced by
Hyperpartisan commentary Opinion and outrage often overshadowed straight news reporting
Algorithmic amplification Social media algorithms prioritized engagement over accuracy spreading misinformation and deepening divides
Direct communication Figures like Trump bypassed traditional media to speak directly to the public via Twitter rallies and press conferences setting the agenda themselves
5 How did the relationship between the Trump White House and mainstream media change the news
It became deeply adversarial The administration frequently labeled critical reporting as fake news eroding public trust in established institutions This pushed some media into a more oppositional stance and fueled a market for overtly proTrump media outlets creating two starkly different media realities for audiences
6 What practical power do tech CEOs have over political news
They have immense indirect power They decide
