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For those who follow the Chinese lunar calendar, the Year of the Snake began at the end of January. The celebrations around that made me think of what I’ve been told is an old Chinese curse — may you live in interesting times.
There’s no question that these are interesting times for media. The Trump administration moved quickly to correct what it perceives as wrongs. New FCC chair, Brendan Carr, reinstated complaints against ABC, CBS and NBC for various actions said to have been prejudicial against then-candidate Donald Trump’s presidential bid. Legacy news outlets were asked to step aside to make room for other sources at the White House and in the Pentagon. Public broadcasting was presented with an FCC investigation to determine whether its sponsorship program violates government rules and should thus lose federal funding.
On the media operations side, companies including CNN and iHeart Radio recently announced layoffs. Allen Media Group signaled a move to centralized weather reporting, potentially eliminating meteorologist positions at local stations, only to walk that back shortly afterwards. Local newspapers have continued to make cuts or to cease operations altogether. Then there’s the lawsuit by X, Elon Musk’s social media company, alleging that a group of national advertisers is engaged in an illegal advertising boycott of the platform. (This after Musk made a profane comment and said “Don’t advertise,” in response to reported concerns about the company’s content moderation practices.)
Interesting times indeed.
One of the things that has made this so difficult for businesses is the speed