Newsmax Vs. DirecTV, and America’s Censorship Regime
One might think of Corporate America increasingly not just as a reflection of the administrative state, but as part of the administrative state
Newsmax Versus DirecTV and America’s Censorship Regime
When news broke recently that DirecTV was booting center-right network Newsmax, the fourth highest-rated cable news channel, from its lineup, the question naturally arose: Was this about politics, or was it strictly business? A deeper question also beckons: To what extent has politics so pervaded every facet of American life that a distinction can even be drawn between the two?
DirecTV claims it parted ways with Newsmax over a contract dispute, maintaining it wishes to bring Newsmax back—albeit on more favorable terms.
Newsmax is adamant that it’s a victim of censorship—that the economic argument is a ruse. It claims that the fees it was seeking under a new contract were well below those of most of two dozen largely left-leaning news and information channels DirecTV carries.
Outrage over DirecTV’s ouster of Newsmax two years out from the next presidential election was swift and widespread, with condemnations flying from right-leaning politicians and pundits alike. Within two days, in a seeming bid to counter claims of ideological discrimination against Newsmax, DirecTV announced it was adding conservative network The First to its lineup, touting its support of “news programming options that reflect all voices.” Newsmax responded that while it’s “glad AT&T DirecTV is adding a conservative commentary channel,” it viewed the move as “a pathetic attempt to deal with millions of angry [Newsmax] viewers.”
For full disclosure, I’m no disinterested observer of these developments. I have regularly appeared on and/or worked with both networks and count former colleagues at each of them. I’m as thrilled for my friends at The First as I’m saddened for my friends at Newsmax.
But the reality is that both are operating in a hostile corporate ecosystem that leaves no network that hosts dissenting voices from ruling class orthodoxy safe. And notwithstanding DirecTV’s efforts to blunt claims of discrimination against Newsmax, given the ways in which the deck is stacked against any right-of-center voice, it would only be surprising if Newsmax wasn’t a victim of the ruling class’s broader War on Wrongthink.
The Newsmax–DirecTV saga may well be a microcosm of this broader war.
I’ve got the full story in a new piece at the Epoch Times, which you can read here.
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