I’m not one for conspiracy theories.
The truth is, I shoot them down on a regular basis once I’m bombarded with claims that sinister forces on Wall Street are conspiring to screw small investors.
Such “rip-offs” are easily explained away with logic and a modest understanding of how markets work.
One such theory making the rounds deserves some attention since the implications, if true, are so scary.
It involves the wonky circumstances surrounding the recent termination of journalist Catherine Herridge from CBS News.
Herridge is a longtime investigative reporter who has been a relentless thorn within the side of the Biden administration.
Here’s why some persons are connecting the proverbial conspiracy dots: Sidelining Herridge might just get the Wall Street-phobic Biden merger cops to approve Paramount’s sale to an even bigger media company.
Again, I hate conspiracy theories, and I’m not anywhere near being sure this one has any merit; Herridge was one in all 800 people (including 20 journalists) recently let go from the struggling media conglomerate, owner of CBS, MTV, Paramount Pictures, Comedy Central, etc.
Catherine Herridge on the Paramount White House Correspondent’s Dinner After Party. Nathan Posner/Shutterstock
Media executives have described much of Paramount’s programming as “melting ice cubes,” industry slang for programs rapidly losing audience share due to irrelevance and cord-cutting.
The corporate is under intense pressure to downsize.
That’s why Paramount is searching for a savior.
Shares are down 77% over the past five years.
A weak promoting market and the necessity to squeeze costs for a planned sale adds to the pressure to chop staffing.
Yet a deal ought to be a layup given the standard of a few of Paramount’s assets (it does control a significant studio and CBS).
Most recently, Herridge has been reporting critically on the Biden administration, the president’s weak mental acuity as displayed in a special-counsel report and the Hunter Biden imbroglio. AP
Plus, its market cap is just $7.6 billion.
It could actually easily be absorbed into any large media or tech outfit searching for content.
So what’s holding it up?
Larger potential suitors (think Comcast, Discovery, Apple or Amazon) are either hesitating or staying away because they don’t consider the Biden administration will approve any merger, my deal sources say.
Smaller players may even face intense scrutiny for the reason that Biden FCC, DOJ and FTC simply hate media properties changing hands.
Put aside the idiocy of Biden’s deal-hating agenda for a moment, and let’s return to the curious case of Catherine Herridge.
(Full disclosure: Herridge and I crossed paths a couple of years back when she worked for Fox News, my employer. She left in 2019 to take the post of senior investigative correspondent for CBS. I don’t know her well, but I’m an admirer of her work.)
After she left Fox in 2019, Herridge picked up where she left off, breaking stories without fear or favor.
Most recently, she’s reporting critically on the Biden administration, the president’s weak mental acuity as displayed in a special-counsel report and the Hunter Biden imbroglio.
Not exactly stuff that endears a reporter to the Biden White House during an election yr.
I’m well aware that journalism has all the time been a rough business made harder by the Web, which first commoditized print media, and is now doing the identical to broadcasting.
Money to pay talent is getting scarce.
Herridge, meanwhile, continues to rebuff a court order to show over her sources on a story she did a couple of Chinese American scientist under federal investigation.
Good at her job
That said, Herridge’s defenestration was suspiciously odd.
She was each superb at her job and one in all the few reporters in mainstream media who doesn’t do a woke calculus each time she does a story, which implies she offered something that CBS really doesn’t have and is scarce throughout mainstream media: fair and balanced reporting.
Now consider the best way she was ousted.
Most individuals after they are told to depart accomplish that by getting a likelihood to scrub out their desks and take their work product with them.
Apparently not Herridge.
In keeping with a column written by George Washington University professor Jonathan Turley in The Hill, “The network grabbed Herridge’s notes and files and informed her that it might resolve what, if anything, could be turned over to her. The files likely contain confidential material from each her stints at Fox and CBS.”
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And knowledge the Biden administration may not wish to be made public as Sleepy Joe tries to win a second term.
Yes, all of it looks as if a little bit of a stretch, but there’s precedent.
Back in 1995, CBS initially pulled a “60 Minutes” interview that featured tobacco-company whistleblower Jeffrey Wigand, ratting out his old company, Brown & Williamson, for allegedly spiking its cigarettes with chemicals that enhanced the consequences of nicotine, the addictive substance in those cancer sticks.
The choice wasn’t made on journalistic grounds, it seems.
The suits decided to kill the interview as they were negotiating shareholder and other approvals for his or her $5.4 billion sale to Westinghouse Corp.
They feared a lawsuit from the tobacco giant would upend the deal.
Back then it was considered a low point for a network known for its journalistic chops, the house of the nice Edward R Murrow.
As The Latest York Times opined in an editorial: “A few of the executives who helped kill the ‘60 Minutes’ interview, including the overall counsel, stand to realize thousands and thousands of dollars themselves in stock options and other payments once the deal is approved.”
CBS denied money was at issue, and “60 Minutes” ultimately aired the Wigand interview; a Vanity Fair piece on Wigand followed, as did successful movie starring Russell Crowe.
We’re not on the movie-making level just yet, in fact.
Following news of the files incident, CBS says it’s “prepared to pack up the remaining of her files immediately on her behalf . . . the office she occupied has remained secure since her departure,” but stay tuned.
Reps for Herridge, Paramount and the White House declined to comment.
