CNN NEWSNIGHT WITH ABBY PHILLIP
11/25/24
10:34 PM
CARI CHAMPION: It's not even realistic in real life, but I do believe that media, everyone sitting here at this table: if you don't agree, we are in for some tough- we're in for some tough years ahead. I do believe that we are not going to be able to be as safe or say what we want to. I don't think free speech is going to be as free.
AUDIE CORNISH: Now, Scott, I want to bring you in here because this kind of link to Orbán, we don't pull it from nowhere. There was a former member of the Hungarian parliament who was writing in Politico who kind of talked about this effort by that government, and how specific it was in terms of purchasing media specifically for propaganda. Do you hear why they're making that connection?
SCOTT JENNINGS: I mean, is the concern that certain media outlets would become propaganda arms of political ideologies? I mean, don't we already have that in this country at a large scale? I mean also, I hear what you're saying about X. I saw a survey this week. It's now the most ideologically balanced user platform of any platform.
CARI CHAMPION: Oh, come on, Scott. Stop. Stop. It's too early. I just sat down. I've only been here for two minutes. You cannot continue to say…
JENNINGS: You’re gonna be embarrassed when I tweet that after the show…
CHAMPION: You can not say that.
ASHLEY ALLISON: Who’s the source?
CHAMPION: Who’s the source?
AUDIE CORNISH: Who’s the source of that?
JENNINGS: What I find- we- we've reported it on this network. And so-
CHAMPION: It's not accurate. And you know it.
JENNINGS: Okay, I'll let you make your statement.
CORNISH: Scott, can I…
JENNINGS: But my point is…
CORNISH: Can I reframe it a different way? Because the web- the site changed radically, right? So whether you think the voices that are- it is somehow more balanced now, that's fine. But no doubt Musk's influence is profound and that you open it up and now you're there with his opinion, and he is now part of this administration.
JENNINGS: Here- here…
CORNISH: So does anyone else think- think that there should be this greater concern about billionaires purchasing media companies?
JIM GERAGHTY: Okay. Would you be worried if Bill Gates controlled MSNBC?
CHAMPION: No, because he's sane.
(CROSSTALK)
GERAGHTY: Because MS in MSNBC, comes from Microsoft. It was a partnership between Microsoft and NBC way back in the 1990s, back when Microsoft was under investigation by Bill Clinton's DoJ for monopoly. I don't remember anybody panicking over MSNBC back then.
CORNISH: No, they definitely did but yeah. Continue. Well, like Fox was launching, MSNBC was launching.
JENNINGS: And it’s still here.
CORNISH: Cable news network was- was shifting. The landscape was shifting.
JENNINGS: But isn't the issue that the left has gotten so used to controlling almost all institutional information distribution arms in this country that when one little piece of it, whether it's X or MSNBC or anything else gets taken away, the panic is so outrageous? I mean, that’s how used to the left is of having control over all of it.