Beat the Press: Inside Trump’s War on Big Media

As Ohio State and Notre Dame reached halftime of the college football championship in January, viewers watched as an unusual interruption crossed their screens: a prerecorded video of the newly inaugurated president.

“In recent years our people have suffered greatly, but starting now we’re going to bring America back and make it safer, richer and prouder than ever before,” Donald Trump said, standing stiffly in front of an American flag as he addressed an audience of 26 million who had tuned in to watch the game. “We will put America first, and by doing so we’re going to make America great again.” 

Even some high-ranking ESPN employees were shocked by the MAGA video. Presidents have appeared on the network’s broadcasts before, but usually for some idle chumminess, like Barack Obama and his March Madness picks, or during an emergency, as Joe Biden did at the Sugar Bowl in January after the New Orleans terrorist attack. But turning over the airwaves for a political speech was uncommon, to say the least. 

“Bonkers,” is how one high-ranking ESPN staffer (who asked for anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press) described the segment. 

Exactly who was responsible for letting Trump crash ESPN’s halftime show is not clear — neither ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro nor Disney chief Bob Iger is publicly taking responsibility for the decision — but the moment highlights the dilemma media leaders find themselves dealing with in 2025. It’s one thing for tech moguls like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg to genuflect before the new president (the same guy, you remember, whom Facebook and Twitter once kicked off their platforms). But the heads of media companies — the last line of resistance to the Trump juggernaut — are in a tougher spot, caught between a workforce and creative partners who run a deep shade of blue and a sometimes vindictive West Wing occupant whose favor they may someday need (and whose punishment they rightfully fear).

So far, these moguls have done their best to at least appear neutral. You didn’t see Iger or Paramount’s Shari Redstone partying at the inauguration, and there are still some signs of pushback at some Hollywood companies. But that doesn’t mean the moguls aren’t buckling to Trump’s will in other ways. From deleted storylines to legal settlements over what many see as clear First Amendment cases to wildly overpaying for Trump-family vanity projects, signs of deference — some call it obedience — have been hard to miss. 

Take, for instance, recent reports that Paramount is considering settling a $10 billion lawsuit Trump filed against 60 Minutes over an interview Bill Whitaker conducted with Kamala Harris on CBS’ flagship news show in October. Trump’s antipathy toward the program goes back to at least 2020, when he walked off the set after some tough questions from then-anchor Lesley Stahl. This time, though, he was objecting to how the show had edited Harris’ longform interview down to 20 minutes, which Trump alleged was election interference, despite the fact that editing videotaped interviews has been standard practice in broadcast journalism since Edward R. Murrow was asking the questions.

Redstone, the majority shareholder in CBS owner Paramount Global, is hardly a MAGA toadie; she has given money to Hillary Clinton and John Kerry (and, even worse as far as Trump is concerned, Mitt Romney). But the media scion has an important piece of business in front of the Trump White House: the pending sale of Paramount to David Ellison’s Skydance Media that would both mark her safe exit and ensure the company’s survival. Abandoning any pretense of political neutrality, Brendan Carr, Trump’s new FCC chair, has publicly tied the lawsuit and the merger, telling Fox News that he’s “pretty confident that that news distortion complaint over the CBS 60 Minutes transcript is something that’s likely to arise in the context of the FCC’s review of that [Skydance] transaction.” 

Then came word that Carr had gone even further in making the acquisition contingent on the lawsuit, ordering CBS to hand over footage and transcripts of the interview, which CBS says it will do. Some employees say they will quit if CBS settles the suit, noting that a settlement would be unprecedented in modern journalism. 

“One proud tradition of news organizations is that they don’t settle cases even when they’re rickety,” explains Samuel G. Freedman, a longtime professor at Columbia Journalism School who has taught journalism ethics, among other subjects. “And here you have a normal, everyday process of editing raw film — a totally winnable case. It’s outrageous to settle it.” 

Doing so, he said, would almost certainly lead to other reporters and news outfits shying away from negative Trump stories, and could even create a modern version of Joe McCarthy’s Red Scare. Criticisms and investigations would be preemptively muted without Trump or Congress drafting a single law. 

“Self-censorship ends up being as damaging as government action,” Freedman said. “Just like we saw with McCarthy.”

CBS isn’t the only news organization bowing to Trump. News executives’ acquiescence has been on display everywhere, from The Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos stopping the paper from endorsing Harris to a moment in early February when psychiatrist and anthropologist Eric Reinhart accused Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong of changing his op-ed critical of Trump’s Health and Human Services pick, Robert Kennedy Jr. (Soon-Shiong also killed his paper’s Harris endorsement.)

Meanwhile, CNN boss Mark Thompson just removed anchor Jim Acosta, a fierce questioner of Trump in his first term, from his 10 a.m. slot and sought to move him into a midnight window. If the move wasn’t explicitly endorsed by Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav and major shareholder John Malone, it wasn’t stopped by them, either. Acosta — whom Trump has called “a major loser” — quit and promptly launched his own video show on Substack (“You may think you have silenced me, but guess again,” he announced on his first episode). 

Over at Disney, Iger signed off on a $15 million payment to settle a defamation lawsuit Trump had filed against ABC News. The nature of the alleged defamation? George Stephanopoulos had said that Trump had been found liable in a civil case for rape when in fact it had been sexual abuse.

Accommodations to Trump haven’t been limited to news coverage. Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos in December traveled to Mar-a-Lago, joining the parade of tech executives. No other studio boss has made the pilgrimage, though clearly in at least one case there has been some back-channeling. Zaslav, who has generally eschewed some of his counterparts’ more progressive politics, hasn’t been seen meeting with Trump himself but has sat down with the next best thing, Elon Musk, joining the richest man in the world at the U.S. Open in September. Sports-media observers are also preparing for a blitz of offers for upcoming UFC broadcast rights, currently with Disney’s ESPN, when negotiations begin in the next few months. Getting close to UFC mogul Dana White, after all, is a pretty good way to get Trump’s ear.

Meanwhile, Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel, who used to represent Trump as his agent, was spotted at Mar-a-Lago after the election, even though he’s been a longtime player in Democratic politics.

Although Trump has only been in office a few weeks, you can already see some of his influence on the screen. Or, rather, not see it. Pixar in December removed a trans storyline from Win or Lose, an upcoming animated series set in a middle school. “When it comes to animated content for a younger audience, we recognize that many parents would prefer to discuss certain subjects with their children on their own terms and timeline,” the company said in a statement. It didn’t mention Trump. But it didn’t have to.

Coming up, expect even more Trump-friendly programming, like that Amazon Prime documentary about first lady Melania Trump that was announced a few weeks before the inauguration. It’d better be good — it’s costing the streamer $40 million in licensing fees (much of which will end up in the Trump family bank account).

At the same time streamers seem to be treating any documentary that goes after Trump like a contagion. Despite premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival to rave reviews, the Adam Kinzinger-centered anti-Trump documentary The Last Republican couldn’t find a single major buyer and had to self-distribute.

Media companies could be slowed down from following the tech-mogul playbook by their recent history. The tech migration to Trump began before the election and helped get him to the White House, as entrepreneurs like Musk and David Sacks raised millions for him and used their platforms to agitate for his election and troll Harris. Hollywood, of course, went the other way, throwing its support behind the vice president with a slew of fundraisers and endorsements, which would make a pivot harder.

But media outfits are in a more fragile position culturally and financially, battered by lower ratings and eroding public trust. A provocation of Trump could tie them up in legal knots or cause him to cancel their products with his fans.

In some cases, the pivot can be understood as appealing not so much to Trump as to his hard-core supporters,  who see an affront to him as an affront to them all. Avoiding Trump’s wrath at a moment when he has more voters than ever could be, through one lens, simply good business. But this very ambiguity could also be what makes the stance so dangerous. If every Trump-fealty move can be justified as simply a play for voters, when do limits to that fealty kick in?

Of course, not every media company or personality is bowing to the White House, at least not yet. NBCUniversal hasn’t softened its coverage of Trump on MSNBC, where anchors like Rachel Maddow hammer the president nightly. NBC’s Saturday Night Live hasn’t stopped lampooning Trump, either. And whatever Redstone ultimately decides about that 60 Minutes lawsuit, CBS’ Grammys on Feb. 2 was hardly an up-with-Trump showcase (especially when Lady Gaga took the stage and, in a clear dig at the president, said, “Trans people are not invisible,” to an approving roar from the audience).

Even some Hollywood figures on the left caution against seeing everything through a dystopian lens. “First law of Trumpodynamics — every action is met with a very not-equal overreaction, thus throwing off our ability to know when shit is actually getting real,” Jon Stewart noted on The Daily Show on Jan. 27, arguing for calmer, more customized responses. 

Point well taken, Jon. But let’s just hope there’s a robust media left when it does. 

That Great Suck-Upping Sound

Some media moguls have practically given themselves hernias genuflecting to Donald Trump. THR looks at who’s bowing the most.

Brian Roberts

The only mogul left standing fully erect, NBC remains a bastion of anti-Trumpism (Rachel Maddow is back on the air five nights a week!).

Shari Redstone

Trying to smooth passage of a Paramount sale, she’s been contemplating an unprecedented settlement in Trump’s suit against 60 Minutes.

Bob Iger

Though he’s battled Republicans like Ron DeSantis, the Disney chief has shown deference to Trump, settling a lawsuit against ABC and giving Trump airtime on ESPN.

David Zaslav

The Warner Bros. Discovery chief is overseeing CNN’s rightward pitch, as Trump critic Jim Acosta is shown the door, while Zas himself has befriended Elon Musk.

Ted Sarandos

The Netflix CEO has not fallen in line like some of his tech-bro brethren, but a visit to Mar-a-Lago sets him apart from his Hollywood power siblings.

Sam Altman

The OpenAI mogul says he’s been wrong about Trump and now believes he’ll be “incredible for the country in many ways” as Altman joins the inauguration-donation bandwagon.

Jeff Bezos

Bezos exerted pressure on The Washington Post’s editorial pages, killed a cartoon unflattering to Trump (and himself) and paid $40 million for a Melania doc.

Mark Zuckerberg

Zuck called Trump surviving the assassination attempt “badass,” removed Meta fact-checking in a sop to the president and was a fixture at the inauguration.

Rupert Murdoch

Murdoch, who visited the Oval Office in early February, has been all in, turning Fox into a Trump media arm. Former Fox star Pete Hegseth is now secretary of defense. 

Elon Musk

He went full Trump, advocating heavily for his candidacy through the election, turning X into a MAGA megaphone, and has become a key adviser in the White House.

This story appeared in the Feb. 5 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.