Manipulators - Conservative Media
1988
1988-01-01 Doug Wilson - founder of Canon Press - tried to buy Christianity Today. You know - Canon Press - where you can get the book “It’s Good to be a Man”.
2004
2004-10-28 The Center for Public Integrity noted that more than 95% of Sinclair Broadcasting Group’s contributions go to Republicans. The article raised questions about whether the industry’s corporate goals may be affecting news coverage.
2006
2006-04-01 A research study was done on Fox News bias in 2006 and found that Republicans gain points in districts that broadcast Fox News.
https://www.nber.org/papers/w12169
2016
2016-01-01 A Cambridge Analytica whistleblower uncovered that data was harvested for political advertising, and the Trump 2016 campaign used that harvested data to build psychographic profiles of users’ personality traits based on Facebook activity. In the oral evidence transcript dated February 27, 2018, Trump comes up 24 times and Cruz comes up 17 times when I did a search. The following year, Mark Zuckerberg testified in front of Congress and was fined $5 billion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook%E2%80%93Cambridge_Analytica_data_scandal
2018
2018-02-16 (context) After Lebron James and Kevin Durant publicly expressed their views about the state of the U.S. under Trump’s leadership Laura Ingraham of Fox News personally attacked Lebron James, telling him he had no business in the political arena and that he should “shut up and dribble”.
2018-03-08 (context) MIT conducted a study showing that social media was designed to spread lies six times faster and is incentivized to go viral when laced with anger, fear or hate.
https://news.mit.edu/2018/study-twitter-false-news-travels-faster-true-stories-0308
2019
2019-01-01 Alt right women’s magazine Evie Magazine was founded by the Hugoboom family. The cover of 2024 features “Ballerina Farm” and “the Importance of Being Sexy”, aimed at the Trad-wife movement. Hugoboom also launched her own brand of supplement called “Toxic Breakup” to “detox the body” after discontinuing the use of birth control. The owners also launched an app in 2022 for women to log their menstrual phases, but the app was controversial for pro-life rhetoric. The app was funded by Peter Thiel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evie_Magazine
https://www.wired.com/story/burnt-hair-and-soft-power-a-night-out-with-evie-magazine/
https://28.co/shop/toxic-breakup
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZ-Hsh1B2TA&list=WL&index=2
2020
2020-05-27 Trump tweeted out that social media silenced Republicans. In that same tweet, Trump threatened to “strongly regulate or close them down” and started the conversation about totally eliminating mail-in ballots. He wrote, “Republicans feel that Social Media Platforms totally silence conservatives voices. We will strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen. We saw what they attempted to do, and failed, in 2016. We can’t let a more sophisticated version of that…happen again. Just like we can’t let large scale Mail-in Ballots take root in our country. It would be a free for all on cheating, forgery, and theft of Ballots. Whoever cheated the most would win. Likewise, Social Media. Clean up your act, NOW!!!”.
2022
2022-01-01 Starting in 2022, Elon Musk made it so you could pay for the blue check verification on Twitter. Then they started having issues with impersonators from other countries and increased rage bait. Research showed a significant increase in hate speech on X following Elon Musk’s acquisition in October 2022.
Remember: rage bait sells.
https://news.berkeley.edu/2025/02/13/study-finds-persistent-spike-in-hate-speech-on-x/
2022-01-01 PragerU announced plans to take advantage of the youth media landscape and go “toe-to-toe” with PBS and Disney. Their websites and resources are inundated with conservative propaganda that they intend to indoctrinate everyone’s children with. (more on Prager-U is covered in section “School Indoctrination”)
2024 September
2024-09-11 Trump was recorded on Fox News requesting preferred anchors for the debate.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-insults-fox-news-anchors-163830353.html
2024 October
2024-10-20 An article with The Cavalier Daily wrote about Bari Weiss & Mitch Daniels addressing the erosion of free speech on college campuses. It is noteworthy that Bari Weiss owns Free Press, which featured articles claiming starvation in Gaza wasn’t happening.
2024 December
2024-12-12 Trump named Kari Lake director of Voice of America.
2025 January
2025-01-13 Prediction market Kalshi named Donald Trump Jr. as their paid advisor. (Context: Kalshi partnered with CNBC, CNN and Fox by the beginning of 2026)
https://news.kalshi.com/p/donald-trump-jr-strategic-advisor
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/15/kalshi-and-polymarket-congress-regulation-washington-influence.html
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/oQdttmT5rb0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8F2z0_Qedk
SUB WALL https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/15/us/politics/donald-trump-jr-prediction-markets.html
2025 February
2025-02-22 Fox News began featuring a new segment “My View with Lara Trump”.
https://www.foxnews.com/shows/my-view
2025 July
2025-07-07 (context) Paramount and Skydance announced plans for a merger.
2025-07-24 Trump signed off on an $8.4B merger between Paramount and Skydance.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5ypylq0vnko
2025-07-24 Senators requested an investigation into corruption and bribery for the Paramount megamerger.
2025 August
2025-08-08 News outlets reported how the heavily right-leaning PragerU plans to completely replace PBS in children’s education, alter truths and peddle biased content. For context, the CEO stated that teachers have been teaching Marxism.
https://www.vox.com/today-explained-podcast/422812/prageru-education-pbs-npr-cpb-defunding
https://www.youtube.com/@PragerU/videos
https://www.pbs.org/video/prageru-1757971049/
2025-08-19 Nexstar Media, managed by conservative donor Perry Sook and former Fox News Executive/Trump administration official Bill Shine announced plans to acquire TEGNA for $6.2B.
2025 September
2025-09-05 Paramount announced its intent to buy Free Press for $100M and make its founder Bari Weiss editor in chief of CBS. For context, Free Press featured an article by Michael Ames in May 2025 calling famine in Gaza a myth. For further context, Weiss wrote some of her own articles in the past including her opinions about feminism and fascism. Many people note in their own opinion articles and monologues that Weiss tries to pretend she is a middleman, but she is very much right-leaning and allegedly a propagandist.
https://www.thefp.com/p/the-gaza-famine-myth
https://www.theunspeakablepodcast.com/p/bari-weiss-derangement-free-press-debate-review
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/dec/20/things-that-matter-bari-weiss-debate-series
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/07/opinion/were-all-fascists-now.html
https://www.thefp.com/t/zohran-mamdani
2025-09-11 Paramount announced it was exploring a bid for cable network Warner Brothers Discovery, which would then place two of Hollywood’s most powerful studios under the same owner.
https://deadline.com/2025/09/paramount-exploring-bid-warner-bros-discovery-1236529093/
2025-09-14 During a prayer vigil for Kirk, Kari Lake spun the narrative that the suspect was “brainwashed” by woke. She went on to “warn” parents not to send their children to universities, which she labeled “indoctrination camps”. This is important because she is the senior advisor for the US Agency for Global Media and could potentially hold a lot of unchecked power in the media. For context, Kari Lake also helped stir controversy in 2022 when she demanded ballots be counted by hand.
https://www.rawstory.com/kari-lake-2673993519/
https://www.thedailybeast.com/kari-lake-blames-college-indoctrination-for-charlie-kirks-death/
2025-09-17 Sinclair Broadcasting issued a press release on their Investor Relations page demanding that FCC and ABC take further action on Kimmel to make a direct apology to the Kirk family and make a meaningful personal donation to Turning Point USA.
2025-09-17 Sinclair Broadcasting stated they would be replacing the Jimmy Kimmel time slot with a Kirk tribute.
2025-09-21 Sinclair Broadcast changed its mind about filling the Jimmy Kimmel time slot with the Kirk tribute and had it moved to YouTube.
2025 November
2025-11-03 Conservative activist Laura Loomer was given press credentials to cover the Pentagon.
https://thehill.com/homenews/media/5587848-pentagon-credentials-laura-loomer/
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4877506-laura-loomer-trump-criticism/
https://x.com/LauraLoomer/status/1985560924720124414
2025 December
2025-12-02 CNN partnered with Kalshi prediction market. CNN gained access to Kalshi’s data through an API and features a Kalshi ticker. (Context 1: Donald Trump Jr. is a paid advisor for Kalshi and an investor/board member for Polymarket. Context 2: Chairman of the CFTC which is supposed to regulate prediction markets threatened in February 2026 “those who seek to challenge our authority in this space let me be clear – we will see you in court”)
https://www.axios.com/2025/12/02/cnn-kalshi-prediction-market-data
https://news.kalshi.com/p/kalshi-cnn-prediction-market-partnership
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/kalshi-becomes-cnn-official-prediction-073203095.html
2025-12-04 CNBC partnered with Kalshi prediction market. Now a Kalshi ticker runs alongside segments of their on-air programming. (Context 1: Donald Trump Jr. is a paid advisor for Kalshi and an investor/board member for Polymarket. Context 2: Chairman of the CFTC which is supposed to regulate prediction markets threatened in February 2026 “those who seek to challenge our authority in this space let me be clear – we will see you in court”)
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/04/cnbc-and-kalshi-strike-exclusive-partnership.html
https://www.businessinsider.com/kalshi-cnbc-deal-cnn-data-integration-partnership-2025-12
2026 February
2026-02-22 Trump threatened Netflix, telling them to fire board member Susan Rice. He told Netflix they would “pay the consequences” if they didn’t “immediately” fire the former UN ambassador under the Obama administration. This threat came after Netflix tried to acquire Warner Brother Discovery but was outbid by Paramount.
https://www.axios.com/2026/02/23/trump-netflix-susan-rice
https://theweek.com/business/trump-netflix-susan-rice-state-run-capitalism
2026-02-25 Paramount Skydance outbid Netflix to buy all of Warner Brothers Discovery.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/netflix-warner-paramount-skydance-deal/
2026 April
2026-04-06 Headline, “Gulf Funds Agree to Back Paramount’s $81 Billion Takeover of Warner”. L’imad wealth fund owned by Abu Dhabi’s crowned price was one of the biggest backers.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/may/07/uae-ruling-royal-family-eu-farming-subsidies
https://deadline.com/2026/04/paramount-wbd-merger-foreign-backing-gulf-funds-deal-1236780058/
2026-04-07 Fox News struck a deal with Kalshi for prediction market data. (Context 1: Donald Trump Jr. is a paid advisor for Kalshi and an investor/board member for Polymarket. Context 2: Chairman of the CFTC which is supposed to regulate prediction markets threatened in February 2026 “those who seek to challenge our authority in this space let me be clear – we will see you in court”)
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/fox-news-deal-kalshi-prediction-market-1236557283/
https://thehill.com/homenews/media/5820864-fox-corporation-integrates-kalshi-markets/
2026-04-13 Hollywood actors, writers and directors signed an open letter to voice opposition for the Paramount-Warner Brothers-Discovery merger. Part of the letter reads, “The integrity, independence, and diversity of our industry would be grievously compromised. Competition is essential for a healthy economy and a healthy democracy. So is thoughtful regulation and enforcement”.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz0egvr94zro
2026-04-23 A Paramount-Warner Brothers Discovery merger for $111B was approved.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgj09ny0dq6o
https://www.npr.org/2026/04/23/nx-s1-5793628/warner-bros-discovery-paramount-skydance-merger
2026-04-28 Shortly after Trump and First Lady Melania Trump demanded Jimmy Kimmel be fired, the FCC opened an investigation into ABC and Disney for DEI practices.
https://abcnews.com/US/fcc-orders-early-review-abcs-broadcast-licenses/story?id=132466823
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fcc-disney-abc-early-license-renewal-jimmy-kimmel-dei/
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/fcc-threatens-abcs-licenses-as-trumps-call-for-kimmels-firing
2026-04-30 (for context because Trump likes to backfill important positions with propagandists from Fox media) Trump pulled Casey Means’ nomination for Surgeon General and replaced her with a Fox news contributor.
https://apnews.com/article/trump-surgeon-general-means-saphier-cebadfb452fb577b6cd5254e2e55d86b
SUB WALL https://www.politico.com/news/2026/04/30/casey-means-murkowski-surgeon-general-rfk-maha-00902206
PAY WALL https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cr5p4pp1407o
2026 May
2026-05-11 The BBC censored a documentary “Gaza: Doctors Under Attack”.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/eh69K_7pAuE
TIMELINE: https://www.camera.org/article/timeline-the-bbc-gaza-documentary-controversy
https://www.bbc.co.uk/helpandfeedback/corrections_clarifications/