How Trump is Capturing America’s Media – Without a Coup

Question Everything

Brian Reed

News, News Commentary, Society & Culture, Documentary, Technology

4.6 • 707 Ratings

🗓️ 30 October 2025

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Veteran foreign correspondent Natalia Antelava has spent 15 years reporting from places where authoritarian regimes have “captured” the media. In other words, they control the dominant messages coming from the press. From Russia to Syria, Natalia has seen what it looks like when a government takes over the media, not overnight, but piece by piece.

Now, she’s moved to the U.S., and is watching that same system work on the American media.

The Pentagon has dissolved its independent press pool. Donald Trump’s billionaire buddies are buying up some of the country’s biggest newsrooms and social apps. Public media has been gutted. And the loudest voices online are the ones that serve power best.

Natalia sits down with Brian to explain how modern autocrats achieve capture without firing a shot – and how Silicon Valley has become their “perfect accomplice”.

“Question Everything” is a production of KCRW and Placement Theory. And don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter.

Guests:

Natalia Antelava, founder of Coda Story

Transcript

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0:00.0	Today.
0:00.5	Some new details right now about Paramount's offer to buy Warner Brothers Discovery.
0:04.9	It first offered $19, then raised that to $20.
0:08.5	Why the seemingly boring business story from last week is freaking me the fuck out.
0:19.5	I know some of you listening to this show are deep in media news, but others are not, less you.
0:26.4	And for that group, let me fill you in quickly on one of the big media industry controversies of the last few weeks, which is Barry Weiss being put in charge of CBS News.
0:36.8	Barry Weiss was an opinion writer at the New York Times who quit dramatically in 2020.
0:41.8	She felt the paper was too lefty, the staff too enamored with social justice.
0:45.9	She then founded an outlet called the Free Press, which would take on the left.
0:50.2	It's a very pro-Israel, very anti-identity politics.
0:54.0	Anti-woke, as people put it.
0:56.5	Then a couple weeks ago, David Ellison, the son of billionaire Larry Ellison, one of the two richest men on Earth, bought the free press for $150 million, and installed Barry Weiss as editor-in-chief of CBS News.
1:11.2	David Ellison was able to do this because he just bought CBS News's parent company, Paramount, this summer, with his dad's money.
1:19.6	Barry Weiss has never worked in broadcast news or even been a news reporter.
1:24.3	She's an opinion journalist with very clear political alignments and views. Now she's
1:29.0	in charge of not only the nightly news at CBS, but also 60 minutes face the nation. So people
1:34.9	at the network are panicking. Plus, yesterday Paramount started laying off a thousand workers.
1:40.2	John Oliver devoted an entire episode to Barry Weiss's CBS takeover.
1:44.4	It is pretty hard to claim you've got punk energy when you essentially spout conservative
1:48.4	talking points while dressed like the front desk manager at a courtyard Marriott.
1:52.4	But I think the connption over Barry Weiss distracts from the bigger concern.
1:58.6	Weiss's new gig is a symptom, and far from the worst symptom, I think,
	...

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