Media Matters CEO Angelo Carusone led movements to pressure advertisers, which forced Fox News to cancel the Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly shows. In 2021, he began the #DumpTrump campaign that led to Macy’s Department stores ending their relationship with former President Donald Trump.
Media Matters is a generally left-leaning organization that allegedly fact-checks conservative media and political personalities.
During Friday’s broadcast of the SiriusXM program “The Dean Obeidallah Show,” Carusone claimed he is “terrified” CNN will end up being bought by Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch, according to a Mediaite report. The self-styled media watchdog claims the network’s new chief executive officer, Chris Licht, is making changes to CNN that will make it so unprofitable the network’s new owners, Warner Bros. Discovery, will sell it.
He informed Obeidallah that Murdoch has made repeated efforts to purchase CNN in the past so would be a likely buyer. Carusone stated Murdoch is sitting on a pile of cash for media purchases, which would allow him to make an all-cash offer for the struggling network.
“He can pay for the deal in cash,” Carusone told Obeidallah about Murdoch. “He can overpay, which is what Rupert Murdoch always does. He always overpays because he knows that it’s easier.”
The Media Matters CEO said people do not realize how often Murdoch has tried to buy CNN.
“It happens all the time,” Carusone commented. “He did it and he made a really aggressive, year-long plus play in 2017 and a run at it in 2014. He’s made runs during the early 2000s, and that matters because that’s how we got the Wall Street Journal.”
Carusone claims Murdoch tried to buy the Wall Street Journal a half dozen times before he eventually convinced the Bancrofts, the Journal’s previous owners, to sell it.
He envisions something similar happening with CNN. Carusone doubts CNN will realize the ratings gains they are hoping for. Recent changes in the political tone of the network’s news coverage along with shifting or terminating talent is designed to make CNN more centrist, less left leaning.
“So at its core, I’m afraid that in the short term, we see some bad coverage out of them, some spots of bad coverage which actually have bigger harms when it comes from CNN,”Carusone remarked. “But longer term, I think that it actually weakens the business model of CNN enough that it makes them more susceptible to just being spun off.”
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