Norah O'Donnell exits "CBS Evening News": What was once "can't miss" news for a large portion of the American TV viewing public is now becoming more of a time capsule oddity, and Norah O'Donnell has been around the business long enough to catch the winds of change before they blew her into the history books. While it very well was more of a joint decision than just her call, the choice to leave that once-prestigious anchor chair at the "CBS Evening News" for a Senior Correspondent role in the network's News division is a smart and inevitable call for everyone. It also signals the eventual death-knell for the venerable nightly news slot across all three major networks. We'll touch that in a moment. As for this move by CBS, the cards had already been dealt. Earlier this month, CBS parent company Paramount Global announced plans to merge with Skydance Media in a move more meant to stop the financial hemorrhaging that the brands have been enduring for years. Suffice to say Shari Redstone and National Amusements, the controlling shareholder of Paramount, wanted out. As news divisions historically have lost money for corporate ownership, (harken back to that excellent lesson in the motion picture "Network" about corporate greed), those in the trenches at CBS knew there were plenty of axes swinging. Mere days after the Skydance deal was finally hammered out, CBS News President Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews announced her departure from leading the news division with the presidential election on the doorstep. She saw the future, and it didn't include long-term employment. Everyone here can read what's tossed onto the wall. and it doesn't bode well.
As for the nightly news slot, CBS will fill it with rotating anchors and lean more on their local reporters for stories, live shots, features and packages. This will save them plenty of cash, allow for more local and regional news coverage, (which is sadly lacking even at the grass roots level), and point their highly-paid talent like O'Donnell to more profitable broadcast ventures on the network and especially on their streaming services. NBC has already turned their nightly news into little more than a shill for their Comcast/Universal products such as the Paris Olympics, and ABC long ago turned "World News Tonight" into a feature-fest ignoring hard stories for those elements that can be monetized with clicks and platform repeats. There are far too many outlets and platforms for people to get their news, and quite often the nightly news shows are covering the same stories in the same video-driven hyperbole fashion that attracts people looking for the next shiny thing. There's still money to be made in that slot, but the days of appointment viewing at 6:30pm Monday thru Friday are done.
Musk forced to surrender by "White Dudes for Harris": It doesn't take a genius to see that Elon Musk is a full-throated supporter of Donald Trump for president. Allowing Trump back on the "X", (and can we PLEASE already stop following that always with "the platform formerly known as Twitter"? We get it), showcasing his own controversial takes on racial issues, and knowing that if elected The Donald will work to ensure his and others like him continue to pay a lot less in corporate taxes, all part of his continued meddling in areas he has little common sense for and enjoys storring pots for getting his name mentioned loudly and often.
Musk got his nose tweaked when he had X pull an account called "White Dudes for Harris", a group fund-raising for the Kamala Harris presidential bid. The group didn't break any X rules, but the suspension kicked in right after they held a YouTube livestream that raised over $4M for the Harris campaign. Musk almost had to be treated for digital whiplash in how fast he backed down and put the account back up.
Neither Musk nor anyone from X ever answered the obvious "why" behind the account being busted, save for something dishwater weak of "Violating our rules against evading suspension". It's not a stretch to ascertain Musk was doing hat he could to put his own fork into anything that would benefit the presumptive Democractic nominee and damage his wealthy buddy.
It's not the first time Musk has pulled something so hysterically inept, and it won't be the last. Where once there was a fairly solid platform for news dissemination, X is now just a bottom-feeding sewer of conspiracy hacks and foreign trolls, all with the blessing of the guy who never invented a single thing, yet takes credit for everyone else's work. That's a story for another day.
"The "must see" documentary prior to the Presidential election: Let your typing fingers run, not walk, to find the documentary "God & Country". Based on a 2006 book of the same name, it digs deep into the roots and effecst of Chriatian Nationalism on American politics. As someone who considers himself a sstudent of history and related journalism, there were more than a few moments even I was educated on. The film is not a slam of organized religion, rather an investigation into how some are using religion for subterfuge, greed, and a penchant for violence. It came and went quickly at the box office, but is now streaming on several popular platforms. Find it. Watch it. Understand what's happening right under our noses, and how America is truly threatened by the rise of Christian Nationalism. A powerful and well produced piece of journalism.
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