Media

Despite being inundated with criticism, far-right podcaster Candace Owens is doubling down on her attacks on Turning Point USA's (TPUSA) Erika Kirk. Owens is suggesting, without evidence, that Erika Kirk was somehow involved in the fatal shooting of her late husband Charlie Kirk, who founded the MAGA youth organization.

The criticism is coming from both the left and the right. Conservative media figures like The Daily Wire's Ben Shapiro (who Owens used to work for) and The National Review's Rich Lowry are calling her out, and liberals and progressives are saying that while they vehemently disagree with Erika Kirk's politics, Owens' YouTube video series "Bride of Charlie" (a play on "Bride of Frankenstein") is a mean-spirited smearing of a widow who lost her husband to gun violence.

Salon's Sophia Tesfaye, in an article published on March 4, argues that "Bride of Charlie" not only underscores Owens' willingness to promote unhinged conspiracy theories — it is also an indictment of right-wing media's business model.

"With Kirk's assassination at a Turning Point USA event in Utah last September, the MAGA movement faced a genuine tragedy," Tesfaye explains. "His widow, Erika Kirk, stepped in to lead the organization. But within weeks, before the grief had even begun to settle, Owens began publicly questioning the circumstances of Kirk's killing and spinning conspiracy theories on her podcast…. What started as insinuation soon metastasized into a serialized spectacle: 'Bride of Charlie,' a multi-episode YouTube series targeting Erika Kirk personally…. In the series, which is still ongoing, Owens hints that Kirk's murder was an inside job, suggests foreign agents may have been involved and implies that Erika Kirk has 'ulterior motives' in leading TPUSA."

Tesfaye notes that although "the conservative establishment has, belatedly, tried to fight back against Owens' accusations" against Erika Kirk, they "have largely failed to land a blow" — as the first episode of "Bride of Charlie" received "nearly 5 million views."

"The real reason right-wing media cannot stop Candace Owens is that they built her," Tesfaye emphasizes. "And, more importantly, they built the engine that fuels her: the machinery of conspiratorial media, which is immune to the tools that might once have contained it. For decades, conservative media has thrived on a business model that monetizes outrage and distrust. The more outrageous the claim, the greater the engagement. The more distrust sowed toward institutions — universities, media, elections, public health, the FBI — the more loyal the audience becomes."

Tesfaye continues, "In December, even as Owens was deep into Charlie Kirk assassination trutherism, Erika Kirk was urging TPUSA audiences to be tolerant of disagreeable views. By the time the right decided Owens had gone too far, she had already built a fully independent operation. The movement that once shielded Owens is now discovering that monsters raised on grievance do not recognize fences. The conservative movement no longer has credible gatekeepers."

Jeffrey Epstein survivor Danielle Bensky has been an outspoken critic of the U.S. Department of Justice's (DOJ) handling of its files on the late billionaire financier and convicted sex offender. Bensky, who met Epstein when she was a young ballerina and says she was abused by him, has been reaching out to a variety of media outlets —including those on the right.

But according to Bensky, Fox News and other right-wing media outlets are ignoring her.

In a Wednesday, March 4 post on X, former CNN host Jim Acosta — who interviewed Bensky for his internet show — tweeted, "A dancer abused by Epstein, Dani Bensky tells me she and other survivors are being ignored by 'Republican media' outlets like Fox. If you want to understand why so many people are giving Trump a pass on Epstein, it's partly because they’re watching Fox."

During the interview, Bensky told Acosta, "We're not able to get on Republican media a lot of the time. We've been hoping to get on Fox News. We've been trying to get on Newsmax. I think maybe two people had done a quick Newsmax. Stories are not even getting across the aisle."

Acosta responded, "Wow. Fox is not interviewing any of the survivors? You can't get on Fox?"

Bensky lamented, "Nope…. A lot of the time, Republican media will not take our stories at all. When I saw the State of the Union, I felt very clear that the chasm between Republicans and Democrats is so great…. There are some baseline things should just be, like, human."

President Donald Trump has the loyal support of Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okl.), but in order to get it, Mullin has to say blatantly untrue things in public — and get called out for it.

Appearing on CNN with host Kasie Hunt on Monday, Mullin found himself on the defensive after insisting Trump’s invasion of Iran is not a war, only to be corrected by Trump’s own defense secretary.

“This isn't a war, we haven't declared war. Everybody wants to say,” Mullin told Hunt, prompting Hunt to play a clip of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth saying earlier on Monday that “we set the terms of this war from start to finish. We didn't start this war. But under President Trump, we are finishing it.”

Hunt then asked Mullin if stood by his earlier statement that this is not a war.

“What he declared on us was war — meaning the Ayatollah declared war on us,” Mullin replied. “We are not at war with the Iranian people. The Ayatollah declared war on us, we've already taken him out, and now we're eliminating the threat."

"[T]his isn't Iraq," Mullin later said. "We made that very clear. Pete Hegseth — Secretary Hegseth — made that very clear. This isn't the same approach. Keep in mind, we took out the leader within an hour.”

“After 9/11, Kasie, we said never again, never again will we be caught flat-footed, never again will we ignore someone like Osama bin Laden when we knew what his intentions were but didn't take him out,” Mullin continued. “We knew what the Ayatollah's intentions were. They had been chanting ‘Death to America’ for 47 years. We gave them that opportunity. Not a war of choice.”

Although Mullin told Hunt that Trump’s Iran war strategy is radically different than Bush’s Iraq war strategy, he has in fact given contradictory ideas about his vision for Iran. New York Times reporter Trip Gabriel wrote on Monday that Trump “said he hoped the military and Guard Corps would surrender their weapons to the people, even though the same hardened forces killed thousands in the streets in January,” which was part of the reason Trump cited for invading Iran in the first place. He has said that his goal is "freedom for the people" of Iran, but then said he has “three very good choices” in mind as to who he will install to take over the country, although he later said “actually, nevermind, we killed those choices."

Similarly, although Trump has downplayed the severity of America’s invasion of Iran, he also told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Monday that “we haven't even started hitting them hard. The big wave hasn't even happened. The big one is coming soon.”

Although President Donald Trump often attacks CNN as "fake news," one CNN contributor he holds in high regard is GOP strategist Scott Jennings — a strident defender of Trump and the MAGA movement. Jennings worked with his share of traditional conservatives in the past, including former President George W. Bush and ex-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky). And if a change in ownership goes through, CNN could end up with a lot more MAGA commentary.

In an article published on February 28, Radar Online's Beth Shilliday reports that many CNN staffers are filled with "dread" over the prosect of the cable news outlet being sold to Paramount-Skydance and "Republican billionaire David Ellison" becoming CNN's "new boss." CNN is presently owned by Warner Bros. Discovery.

"Paramount and Netflix had been in a bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery," Shilliday explains, "but the streamer said it would leave the negotiations after Paramount put in what it called a 'superior' revised bid that the company was unwilling to match on February 26…. Employees are 'devastated' by the prospect of the sale, one insider told Variety."

The possibility of CNN being sold to Paramount-Skydance follows shakeups at CBS News under Bari Weiss (who Ellison brought in) and the Washington Post under Amazon's Jeff Bezos. Under Bezos, a who's-who of the Post's opinion section have left — including Greg Sargent (now with The New Republic), Catherine Rampell (now an MS NOW host), Paul Waldman, and Never Trumper Jennifer Rubin (now with The Contrarian).

"Trump has gone so far as to not take questions from CNN's White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins due to the network's nonstop bashing of the president and his policies," Shilliday observes. "He openly calls CNN 'fake news' when speaking to reporters, and repeats the claim frequently on his social media. If Ellison ends up with the cable news network among his assets, CNN's openly anti-Trump proselytizing could soon change."

President Donald Trump reportedly played a key role in guaranteeing Warner Brothers Discovery (WBD) was sold to the pro-Trump Ellison family rather than Netflix — yet some conservatives think Trump overestimates what he won in that bargain.

“Trump’s head is stuck in the 80s so he may not have noticed that cable is dying,” conservative commentators Tim Miller and Amanda Carpenter wrote in their Friday podcast episode for The Bulwark. “All he can think about is getting his greedy little hands on CNN so he can make them say nice things about him. But independent outlets—like The Bulwark— are changing the media space and are beyond the reach of a corrupted FCC. Nevertheless, our screens are going to be filled with vast quantities of pro-MAGA propaganda.”

Later in the podcast, Miller speculated that even if Trump prevails in saturating the media landscape with his point of view, his narrative ultimately will not prevail. Instead Miller speculated that kids are “gonna be in high school, and there's gonna be a picture of people storming the Capitol with Confederate flags and Trump flags. And it's gonna be two paragraphs in the chapter. And it's gonna be like, ‘Donald Trump tried to overturn democracy. They stormed the Capitol. Police officers died.’ That's what your kids are gonna learn.”

Trump reportedly played a critical role in making sure Warner Brothers Discovery was sold to the Ellisons, including meeting privately with Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos at the White House earlier this week shortly before Sarandos pulled Netflix out of the deal and publicly demanding he fire UN ambassador Susan Rice from the Netflix board or else “pay the consequences.”

“President Donald Trump is not the sort of old-fashioned Republican who believes businesses should operate unfettered from government interference,” reported The Week at the time. “Instead, he is now telling Netflix to fire a prominent board member who once worked for the Obama administration.” Indeed, the White House has made it clear since last year that it wanted the pro-Trump Ellison family, led by father Larry and son David, to take over CNN.

CNN now joins a long list of news media and social media platforms owned by people actively supportive of Trump, including Amazon and The Washington Post (Jeff Bezos), Facebook and Instagram (Mark Zuckerberg), Twitter/X (Elon Musk) and TikTok (a consortium of pro-Trump billionaires including the Ellisons). It is well known that Trump wanted the Ellisons to purchase CNN so hosts who regularly criticize Trump, including Erin Burnett and Brianna Keilar, can be fired.

“The question nobody is asking is the one that keeps me up at night: what has already been arranged for the one asset the president demanded change hands, in the one company where someone quietly built the legal infrastructure to make it happen, five months ago, before anyone was looking?” business journalist Audrey Henson wrote on her Substack shortly before Netflix’s withdrawal was announced. Her post included extensive documentation regarding the details of the business deal.

She concluded, “I do not have the final answer yet. But I know where the documents are. And now, so do you.”

The billionaire head of a Berlin-based global mass media behemoth that owns influential outlets including Politico, reportedly met with White House chief of staff Susie Wiles on Wednesday.

Mathias Döpfner serves as chairman and CEO of Axel Springer SE, a publishing group that operates in dozens of countries and counts U.S. private equity firm KKR — co‑founded by Republican donor Henry Kravis — among its principal owners. According to Forbes, Kravis gave one million dollars to Donald Trump's 2017 inauguration committee.

In the U.S., Axel Springer also publishes Business Insider and Morning Brew.

New York Times media reporter Ben Mullin reported that Wiles met with Döpfner in, according to a source, "an introductory, get-to-know-you meeting."

The meeting comes just one day after President Donald Trump delivered his controversial State of the Union address and less than nine months before the midterm elections.

Döpfner sent an email to his top executives before the 2020 election, asking if they would like to join him to pray for the re-election of Donald Trump, according to reports. The email came one year before Axel Springer sealed the deal to purchase Politico.

“Do we all want to get together for an hour in the morning on November 3 and pray that Donald Trump will again become President of the United States of America?” Döpfner wrote in the email, The Daily Beast reported, citing an article in The Washington Post.

“No American administration in the last 50 years has done more,” Döpfner added.

“When asked about the message,” The Daily Beast reported, “Döpfner initially denied it existed, going so far as to say: ‘It has never been sent and has never been even imagined.’ When confronted with a printout of the email, he explained that he may have sent it ‘as an ironic, provocative statement in the circle of people that hate Donald Trump.’ ‘That is me,’ he added. ‘That could be.'”

In a 2022 analysis titled "The Scandalous History of America’s Newest Media Baron," Foreign Policy reported: “The new owner of Politico, Axel Springer, has a decades-long record of bending journalistic ethics for right-wing causes.”

Fox News host Bret Baier told host Gillian Turner that despite President Donald Trump's cheering around his work on the economy, people are still struggling.

He anticipated that the Tuesday night State of the Union Address would likely focus on the economy.

"I think that there’s going to be a real significant part of this speech that deals with what they see, what they passed with the Big Beautiful Bill, what people they believe, the administration believes are starting to feel and will feel as the year progresses," said Baier.

He touted consumer confidence numbers increasing, saying they had previously been low.

"And there are people that are feeling pain from this economy, and you see that in polls all up and down,” said Baier. “The president is going to spend a lot of time on the economy, but he has a full plate of issues to deal with — Iran, the fallout from Venezuela. He will react to the Supreme Court and the tariffs, and you wonder how that’s going to go with the Supreme Court Justices, several of them in the front row listening to the speech."

"So, it’ll be fascinating to see, expect these stories, weaving in all of these elements with real people as examples, because the president has done that before, and he will do it again," he added.

President Donald Trump is scheduled to deliver his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress this evening.

The address represents a key moment for the administration to outline its legislative agenda, economic priorities, and vision for the nation.

Trump's speech comes amid ongoing political polarization, debates over his policies on immigration, the economy, and foreign affairs, and continued controversy surrounding various investigations and legal challenges. And the address will likely draw significant media coverage and public attention as a defining moment of his presidency.

This Sunday night, February 22, CNN is airing reporter Pamela Brown's documentary on Christian nationalism, a far-right form of evangelical fundamentalism closely tied to the MAGA movement. Brown, in the documentary, notes that Christian nationalists are hailing the late Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk — who was fatally shot during an event in Utah last year — as a martyr for their cause. And she interviews Matthew Taylor, a religious scholar at Georgetown University; Taylor makes a clear distinction between "radicalized" Christian nationalists and the many Christians who reject their belief system.

In a February 21 segment, Fox News' Kayleigh McEnany — who served as the fourth White House press secretary during President Donald Trump's first administration — attacked the documentary as a "hit piece on the resurgence of Christianity in America." But according to Mediaite reporter Colby Hall, McEnany's comments were both misleading and painfully lacking context.

Hall, in an article published on February 22, points out that Brown interviewed self-described Christian nationalist Andrew McIlwain, a Texas resident, in the documentary and discussed Kirk's murder with him. During that part of the documentary, according to Hall, Brown made a statement that "Fox's audience never heard" — which was, "Kirk's death happened at a moment of unprecedented alignment between Christian nationalists and the Trump Administration."

Hall explains, "That sentence is not an aside. It is the documentary's thesis in miniature. It clarifies that the project is not an attack on churchgoing or orthodox belief. It is an examination of the political alignment between a self-described Christian nationalist movement and executive power. Fox cut it. Instead, McEnany presented the film as an assault on faith itself and amplified a Georgetown professor's warning about 'radicalized' Christians. She insisted the framing was 'so off base,' collapsing any distinction between Christianity as religion and Christian nationalism as an ideology seeking to shape public policy…. By trimming Brown's contextual line and McIlwain's own articulation of a faith-centered political vision, Fox transformed a documentary about political theology into an imagined attack on believers."

Hall adds, "The audience was invited to reject a caricature while being shielded from the actual argument…. The central question Brown is asking — whether a movement that openly ties America's future to 'scripture' and enjoys 'unprecedented alignment' with a presidential administration warrants scrutiny — never made it to the people most likely to vote on it."

Note to the decision-makers at the Gallup Organization, which for nearly 90 years has tracked presidential approval ratings: Capitulation never works.

I learned this the hard way as a teen playing basketball on D.C. playgrounds. I regretted my fecklessness.

Gallup last week admitted it would no longer survey Americans’ sentiments on how the commander in chief was faring, though I couldn’t find news of that major switch on the company’s website.

The organization’s latest presidential barometer, in December, placed Donald Trump’s approval rating at an abysmal 36%. The worst was 34%, another honorific Trump earned as he was leaving office at the end of his first term. It was right after the Jan. 6, 2021, siege on the U.S. Capitol.

Yes, other companies conduct surveys nowadays about the presidency. Gallup, though, held a unique place in the industry.

A Gallup spokesman told The New York Times the company was shifting strategy. He also used other corporate-speak that, frankly, doesn’t justify Gallup’s cowardice.

As The Times noted, the polling firm’s decades of data gave “historical context to what amounts to a monthly snapshot of Americans’ views.” The independent barometer has been valuable.

It’s curious the company didn’t make the change under then-President Joe Biden, but is doing so now under a thin-skinned president.

Trump and his administration have targeted journalists with criminal indictments, filed lawsuits against media outlets and often lied about the actions of violent federal immigration agents – even when video footage and witness statements proved the contrary.

My questions to Gallup’s media folks, including what role Trump’s attacks on journalists played in the polling decision, weren’t returned by my deadline.

Gallup’s groveling reminds me of when I relinquished my chance to play a playground basketball game – even though I’d earned it – to a guy bigger, stronger, and a little older than me. “I’m taking your spot,” he declared, with a hint of menace.

The shame was I didn’t fight for it, even if I would’ve gotten bloodied. I couldn’t return to that court because no one would respect me. As I got older, I stood up for myself more, no matter whether it made me uncomfortable.

That a private company like Gallup would cave so dramatically to this administration is reprehensible. Why is it acting beholden to officials who disrespect law, precedent and common decency?

The capitulation is a stain on Gallup’s reputation and legacy, and it leaves Americans with less information on how we all feel our top government executive is faring.

A conservative columnist is blasting President Donald Trump for continuing to spread the baseless conspiracy theory that he actually won the 2020 presidential election.

“Donald Trump’s belief in widespread fraud in the casting and counting of 2020 ballots is entailed by his belief that it is theoretically impossible for him to lose at anything,” wrote George F. Will, a former adviser to President Ronald Reagan and columnist to The Washington Post. “His certitude infects millions of Americans, some of whom think it inconceivable that he could ever be mistaken. Others doubt that anyone could win the presidency while obsessing about a complex conspiracy for which there is no evidence.”

Will correctly pointed out that Trump has a long history of claiming something was stolen from him when he loses — and it started well before politics. During a 2016 debate, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton accurately pointed out Trump accused the Emmy Awards of being rigged against him when he was snubbed for his work on the reality TV show “The Apprentice.” Earlier that year, after losing the Iowa caucuses to Ted Cruz in the 2016 GOP primaries, Trump baselessly alleged fraud and demanded a new election. Throughout the 2016 campaign Trump said he would only accept the result if he won, and after winning the Electoral College but losing the popular vote that year, he falsely blamed millions of illegal ballots and established a voter fraud commission that eventually disbanded without finding evidence of his allegations.

In 2020, Trump preemptively attacked mail-in voting, prematurely declared victory on Election Night and falsely claimed votes were being "dumped" against him. Biden ultimately won by a clear margin in the popular vote (81.3 million to 74.2 million) and the same Electoral College margin (306-232), but despite this Trump attempted a coup on January 6, 2021. To this day, Trump continues to falsely claim he won the 2020 election.

“Someone should read to him ‘Lost, Not Stolen,’ a 2022 report by eight conservatives (two former Republican senators, three former federal appellate judges, a former Republican solicitor general, and two Republican election law specialists),” Will wrote. “They examined all 187 counts in the 64 court challenges filed in multiple states by Trump and his supporters. Twenty cases were dismissed before hearings on their merits, 14 were voluntarily dismissed by Trump and his supporters before hearings. Of the 30 that reached hearings on the merits, Trump’s side prevailed in only one, Pennsylvania, involving far too few votes to change the state’s result.”

Will concluded, “Trump’s batting average? .016. In Arizona, the most exhaustively scrutinized state, a private firm selected by Trump’s advocates confirmed Trump’s loss, finding 99 additional Biden votes and 261 fewer Trump votes.” Therefore he wrote of Trump, “The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.”

The Pulitzer Prize-winning Will is not alone among conservatives warning about Trump’s authoritarian election-denying tendencies. Linking his 2020 denialism to his efforts to discredit Democrats if they win the 2026 midterms, a Republican who served as Maricopa County, Arizona county recorder explained Trump’s strategy.

"Almost every single Republican that I spoke with after the 2020 election ... knew that there was very little to Donald Trump's allegations of a stolen election,” Stephen Richer, who served when Trump attempted to steal the 2020 election, recently told The Atlantic. “At best, they stayed quiet. At worst, they went full-throated along with it because they knew it was a path to political riches."

He also said Republicans are planning to dispute however many number of Democratic victories they need to stay in power, then demand House Speaker Mike Johnson reject their seats.

“Speaker Mike Johnson, the outgoing speaker, will choose not to seat the new members, because they’re in allegedly disputed elections,” Richer said.

Conservative historian Robert Kagan expressed the same concern, arguing Trump has trained Republicans to oppose democratic outcomes unless they get what they want.

“I am worried, as I have said and others have been pointing out, about whether we will even have free and fair elections in 2026, let alone in 2028,” Kagan said. “I think Trump has a plan to disrupt those elections, and I don't think he's willing to allow Democrats to take control of one or both houses as could happen in a free election.”

Since returning to the White House, Donald Trump has picked many former Fox News hosts for key positions — from Jeanine Pirro (now a federal prosecutor in the District of Columbia for the U.S. Department of Justice) to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. Another is Dan Bongino, who is back at Fox News and resumed his podcast after leaving his position as deputy FBI director.

In a February 10 column, MS NOW's Steve Benen describes a "revolving door" linking Trump officials and right-wing media. And he stresses that although Bongino was an "embarrassment" at the FBI, that didn't stop Fox News from rehiring him.

"The precise number of former Fox hosts, anchors and contributors who have joined Donald Trump's team is open to debate," Benen explains, "but by any fair count, the total is roughly two dozen. One of the notable things about revolving doors, however, is that they can be used to go in both directions: As a wide variety of figures leave Fox to join Team Trump, some members of Team Trump have also left the administration to join Fox…. Bongino's tenure at the FBI was an embarrassment. The president thought it might be interesting to put a volatile podcast personality in charge of running the bureau, and the result was a failed experiment in amateurism: Bongino did a job he didn't like badly."

Benen points out that Bongino "is in a unique position."

"While the revolving door has spun quickly since Trump returned to the White House," the "Rachel Maddow Show" producer observes, "Bongino is one of those rare people who went from conservative media to the administration and then back to conservative media — all within the span of about 10 months."

President Donald Trump, in what appeared to be an attempt to pressure two major cable news networks, warned against booking two prominent former officials from his first administration.

Trump targeted CNN and MS NOW — formerly MSNBC, which he called “MSDNC” — while denouncing attorney Ty Cobb, a former member of the White House legal team who reported directly to the president, and former Department of Homeland Security Chief of Staff Miles Taylor.

The president called Cobb “one of the Worst Lawyers in Washington, D.C.,” and a “WHACKJOB, who I hardly knew,” and said Taylor is “another major Loser … who I have no idea who he is.”

He charged that both “make livings talking about me like they know me well.”

“So, when you watch these two guys on Television, which, fortunately, doesn’t happen often because there’s very little audience at either CNN or MSDNC,” he wrote, “remember, they know nothing about me — Just two DOPES trying to make a ‘buck’ by pretending to know something about someone who turned out to be very famous.”

Trump already was the president when they served in his administration.

“These two Networks are forewarned not to put them on the air again, because they have no knowledge or credibility with respect to anything have [sic] to do with DONALD J. TRUMP.”

Last month, Cobb “claimed President Trump is experiencing a ‘significant decline’ in his mental faculties,” according to The Hill.

“I think the dementia and the cognitive decline are, you know, palpable, as do many experts, including many physicians,” Cobb said.

Trump’s social media post came just about the same time that he or someone with access to his social media account deleted what many, including several prominent Republicans, denounced as a racist meme that depicted former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama as apes.

The New York Times is being destroyed over a since-deleted excerpt in its report on President Donald Trump sharing racist imagery online.

Trump shared an AI video spreading conspiracies about voter fraud that depicted former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama as monkeys, a trope often used refer to Black Americans in a disparaging context.

The Times report included the passage: "It was unclear if Mr. Trump was aware that the clip had been included in the video before he shared it. It was unclear how the clip was made, although it appeared to have been generated by A.I. The clip appeared to have been taken from a video that was shared in October by a user on X whose watermark is shown with the caption 'President Trump: King of the Jungle,' and an emoji of a lion."

The beginning of that paragraph has since been removed by The Times, but not before activist Oliver Willis copied it and posted the initial screenshot online.

"The New York Times has finally covered the Trump video of Obama as an ape — and they are still providing cover for him. F—— the Times," Willis added as a comment.

Long-time attorney Max Kennerly wrote, "Love how the presumption here is that the President doesn't know what he's sharing and that's fine and normal. Sorry, no, if the President doesn't know what he's sending out, then that is indisputable proof of gross incompetence, cognitive unfitness, or both."

When Ben Bagdikian, an esteemed journalist and early FAIR contributor, published his groundbreaking book The Media Monopoly in 1983, he painted a troubling picture of US media consolidation, reporting that 50 corporations controlled the media business. With each reprint, that number dwindled (FAIR.org, 6/1/87). When FAIR replicated his analysis in 2011 (Extra!, 10/11), it stood at 20.

Now, over 40 years after the initial release of The Monopoly Media, the media landscape has transformed drastically. Even Bagdikian’s later editions, written at the dawn of the internet, could not fully anticipate how profoundly digital technology would reconfigure the media oligarchy.

“News” is increasingly synonymous with online news. Over half the US public (56%) say that they “often” get news through their digital devices—compared to less than 1 in 3 (32%) who often get news from TV, 1 in 9 from radio, and only 1 in 14 from print publications like newspapers or magazines (Pew, 9/25/25).

Which raises the question: Who owns the leading online news sites—and, by extension, largely shapes the ideas and information that reach millions of Americans?

The pervasive presence of billionaires and the entrance of private equity firms in FAIR’s Top 7 suggest even further shifts away from democratic, truth-telling media.

Each month, Press Gazette, a London-based magazine for the journalism industry, ranks the top 50 news websites in the US in order of monthly visits, based on data from the marketing firm Similarweb. FAIR tallied Press Gazette‘s results over a 12-month span, from December 2024 to November 2025, to get a figure for total US visits to major news sites over that period: 45.6 billion.

More than half of those visits, nearly 25.5 billion, went to news sites controlled by just seven families or corporate entities.

1. Ochs-Sulzberger Family (New York Times): 5.54 billion

The owner that commands the largest share of news site viewership–a staggering 5.5 billion over one year—is the Ochs-Sulzberger family, the media dynasty that acquired the New York Times in 1896. Control of the Times has since passed through four generations, cemented by a family trust; over a century later, scion A.G. Sulzberger currently sits as the chair and publisher. As its reach greatly expanded in the digital age, the paper continues its tradition of allegiance to the establishment and opposition to what it sees as excessively progressive policies.

2. Murdoch Family (News Corp, Fox): 5.46 billion

The No. 2 spot (just under 5.5 billion views) is occupied by the Murdoch family. Billionaire right-winger Rupert Murdoch built an expansive global media empire encompassing Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, and British tabloid the Sun, all of which made the US Top 50 list, as well as many other media outlets in the US, Britain, and Australia.

The empire is now under two corporate umbrellas, News Corp (the papers) and Fox Corporation (TV); both are led by Rupert’s billionaire son, Lachlan Murdoch, who inherited the role following a messy succession battle. He was apparently chosen for his dedication to maintaining the right-wing political advocacy that has long characterized the Murdoch media portfolio.

Rupert Murdoch, who has always cultivated political connections, has a relationship with President Donald Trump going back decades, with Murdoch even acting as an informal adviser during Trump’s first administration. That chumminess has not been enough to protect Murdoch from Trump’s assault on the news media: Trump is currently suing the Wall Street Journal for $10 billion for publishing an incriminating birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein that features his signature. Still, Murdoch and Trump were recently reported to be dining together at the White House.

3. Warner Bros. Discovery (CNN): 4.0 billion

Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), a US media and entertainment conglomerate, comes in third in terms of news audience reach (4 billion), solely on the basis of its ownership of CNN. (The media group also owns extensive non-news holdings, including the Warner Bros. movie studio and HBO.)

WBD accepted a buyout bid from Netflix for an estimated $83 billion, but the deal does not include CNN or any of Warner Bros. cable networks, which would be consolidated into the separate corporation Discovery Global next year.

The Netflix-Warner Bros. deal appears to have survived numerous hostile takeover bids by Paramount Skydance that sought to include CNN. But there are more obstacles ahead: Aside from antitrust concerns raised by Democrats over the streaming giant taking over a major Hollywood studio, Trump’s connections to Larry and David Ellison of Paramount—and the fact that ownership of CNN is still very much up for grabs—means that the battle over this set of influential media properties is far from over.

Warner Bros. already has a track record of capitulating to the demands of the Trump administration, but a loud and proud Trump ally at the helm of CNN would be a major escalation.

Trump has pledged personal involvement in the federal government’s review of the merger, warning that “it could be a problem.” He has insisted that CNN be sold in any Warner Bros. deal, signaling his intent to install pro-Trump ownership and steer the network’s political angle.

Gaining control of CNN would bring Paramount to the No. 3 spot, and would grant David Ellison—son of billionaire technocrat Larry Ellison, both vocal Trump supporters who have pledged to use their power to further advance Trump’s own—a new level of control over the US media landscape. Warner Bros. already has a track record of capitulating to the demands of the Trump administration, but a loud and proud Trump ally at the helm of CNN would be a major escalation.

Consider the rapid changes implemented at CBS following Skydance’s August 2025 acquisition of Paramount, which hugely expanded the Ellisons’ media empire. As documented by FAIR (7/24/25, 10/9/25, 11/6/25), this merger has resulted in blatant “ideological restructuring,” with the appointment of “anti-woke” ideologue Bari Weiss to CBS editor-in-chief, the cancellation of the famously Trump-critical “Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” and a wave of politically motivated layoffs.

4. Apollo Global Management (Yahoo): 2.7 billion

At No. 4 is private equity firm Apollo Global Management, which since 2021 has owned the Yahoo group. Yahoo News and Yahoo Finance together generated 2.7 billion views during the analyzed period. These sites primarily aggregate content from other news outlets, with occasional original articles, and rely heavily on algorithm-based personalization. Apollo’s current CEO, billionaire Marc Rowan, has recently donated millions to Republicans.

Rowan was also heavily involved in developing Trump’s “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” a proposal, as the New York Times (10/3/25) reported, that would provide financial incentives and preferential treatment to schools that sign and, in turn, agree to limit international students, protect conservative speech, generally require standardized testing for admissions, and to adopt policies recognizing “that academic freedom is not absolute,” among other conditions.

5. Brian Roberts (Comcast): 2.4 billion

Ranked No. 5 with 2.35 billion visits during the analyzed period, Comcast is a media and technology company with extensive holdings—of which NBC News, CNBC, MSNBC, and Today all made appearances in the Top 50. Comcast’s billionaire CEO, Brian Roberts, is the controlling shareholder.

FAIR (6/11/16, 4/23/18) has long criticized the corporate skew of Comcast-owned media. More recently, however, this bias has devolved into patent deference to the Trump administration. Trump has repeatedly criticized Comcast and its news subsidiaries for bias against him. In February 2025, his FCC targeted Comcast for its “promotion of DEI.” Comcast quickly “confirmed it had received [FCC chair Brendan] Carr’s letter,” noting that it will be “cooperating with the FCC to answer their questions.” (The Hill, 2/12/25).

Changes to accommodate Trump’s demands were swift and severe. As covered by FAIR (3/6/25), MSNBC overhauled its staff soon afterward:

The news channel has nixed or demoted their most progressive anchors, all of whom are people of color. These are the hosts who have drawn the most ire from Donald Trump’s online warriors, according to Dave Zirin of The Nation (2/28/25).

Comcast further demonstrated its subservience to Trump with a recent donation to the new White House ballroom.

In January 2026, Comcast completed its spin-off of many of its news and cable holdings, including CNBC and MSNBC (rebranded as MS Now), to Versant Media—a company that Roberts retains control over.

6. Microsoft (MSN): 2.1 billion

Coming in at No. 6, Microsoft, the technology conglomerate that owns MSN, also donated to Trump’s ballroom. Similar to Yahoo, MSN is an algorithm-based republisher of news stories, which pulled in 2.1 billion views over the studied time frame. Given Microsoft’s obsession with AI, it is perhaps unsurprising that MSN has started to lean heavily on auto-generated content, coming under fire for promoting unreliable sources and publishing blatant misinformation.

Microsoft’s ownership is dominated by institutional shareholders, with mutual fund giant Vanguard leading the way at 9%. Microsoft’s billionaire CEO, Satya Nadella, is known to have a friendly relationship with Trump—they have met and dined together on several occasions. In fact, before helping to fund Trump’s East Wing ballroom, Microsoft contributed $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund.

7. IAC (People): 1.9 billion

No. 7 IAC Inc. owns numerous media and internet brands, including Top 50 sites People and Daily Beast. Taken together, these two sites generated 1.9 billion views over 12 months. Billionaire founder Barry Diller serves as chair, senior executive and the largest individual shareholder of IAC. It should be noted that Diller has publicly criticized Trump on several occasions, standing out as the only one among the Top 7, aside from New York Times publisher Sulzberger, to do so.

Old Wine in a New Bottle

While not a replica of the original Bagdikian study, which took into account all major forms of media rather than focusing on the dominant medium (then television), FAIR’s research shows the continuation of the dynamics he described in a pre-internet age. The internet has not democratized news in any meaningful way; instead, the media monopoly has simply migrated to digital spaces.

At the same time, the pervasive presence of billionaires and the entrance of private equity firms in FAIR’s Top 7 suggest even further shifts away from democratic, truth-telling media.

The growing presence of private equity in media is a relatively new phenomenon, highlighting the usefulness of expansive media portfolios as vehicles for profit extraction. Along with the burgeoning influence of billionaires on the media landscape, the control of capital over media has become, if possible, even more apparent.

Almost three decades ago, the late media scholar Robert McChesney (Extra!, 11–12/97) wrote presciently of the globalization of media behemoths in the digital age:

It is a system that works to advance the cause of the global market and promote commercial values, while denigrating journalism and culture not conducive to the immediate bottom line or long-run corporate interests.

Some once posited that the rise of the internet would eliminate the monopoly power of the global media giants. Such talk has declined recently as the largest media, telecommunication and computer firms have done everything within their immense powers to colonize the internet, or at least neutralize its threat.

What is tragic is that this entire process of global media concentration has taken place with little public debate, especially in the US, despite the clear implications for politics and culture. After World War II, the Allies restricted media concentration in occupied Germany and Japan because they noted that such concentration promoted anti-democratic, even fascist, political cultures. It may be time for the United States and everyone else to take a dose of that medicine. But for that to happen will require concerted effort to educate and organize people around media issues. That is the task before us.

Research assistance: Priyanka Bansal, Saurav Sarkar, Lara-Nour Walton