This publish was initially printed on The Washington Informer
By Stacy M. Brown
In President Donald Trump’s first eight months again within the White Home, he isn’t just following the Undertaking 2025 playbook — the authoritarian blueprint he as soon as claimed to know nothing about — he’s executing it.
From purging range packages to steamrolling media independence, Trump has unleashed a number of discriminatory insurance policies underneath the guise of federal energy.
And now, with the blessing of federal regulators, he has the media — together with Black-owned and Black-centered platforms — underneath his heel.
The Federal Communications Fee (FCC) lately permitted the $8 billion acquisition of Paramount International — mother or father firm of CBS and BET — by Skydance Media. The merger was greenlit simply days after Paramount paid a $16 million settlement to Trump, resolving a lawsuit over a “60 Minutes” interview with then-candidate and former Vice President Kamala Harris.
Critics say the timing was no coincidence.
Throughout a PBS interview, journalist Dylan Byers mentioned plainly: “It definitely appears that manner. All accessible proof means that this was a payoff dressed up as a settlement.”
The concern, mentioned Byers, is that that is the brand new value of doing enterprise in Trump’s America.
“In the event you want any deal to get finished, any merger, any acquisition, you is likely to be compelled to cough up — the quantity appears to be — $16 million to the Trump Presidential Library.”
Additional, the deal required: the gutting of DEI initiatives, the set up of a political ombudsman to watch “bias,” and an extra $20 million in PSAs devoted to causes “close to and pricey to the president’s coronary heart.” One lone FCC commissioner voted in opposition to the deal, citing “overreach by the FCC and capitulation by Paramount.”
Brendan Carr, FCC Chairman, was blunt in his public remarks.
“President Trump is essentially reshaping the media panorama,” he mentioned, applauding Trump’s direct assaults on legacy media giants like ABC, NBC, and CBS, now successfully underneath his affect.
‘This Is About Trump Making the Guillotine Whiter’
The president’s affect extends to content material and tradition.
BET — a pillar of Black music, movie and storytelling — has abruptly suspended each the BET Hip Hop Awards and the Soul Practice Awards indefinitely. It’s a blow many within the Black group see as half of a bigger technique: silencing Black voices whereas making the media whiter, safer, and Trump-approved.
A viral video by Tik Tok consumer @TalkUrShxxtNene has ignited on-line conversations by connecting the dots that mainstream retailers have tiptoed round.
“So, BET has suspended BET Hip Hop and the Soul Practice Awards indefinitely,” the video begins. “Now I need everybody to concentrate to this s**t.”
The publish breaks down the timeline and particulars of the Paramount-Skydance merger, declaring the suspicious coincidence of Stephen Colbert’s present being canceled, CBS executives altering their messaging, and the networks now reportedly having a “CC monitor for Trump.”
“That is about Trump making the guillotine whiter,” she says within the video. “Solely white folks needs to be seen. They usually’re going to dismantle BET whether or not we understand it or not.”
She affords a warning.
“Little by little, they’re going to take BET away from us,” she declared.
Her video factors to a bigger agenda: the erasure of Black visibility in media, the collapse of Black cultural programming, and the sanitization of leisure to mirror Trump’s white nationalist imaginative and prescient.
“They’re eroding everybody else and leaving the white folks there to sit down,” she mentioned. “Blue eyes and blonde hair usually are not the architects of magnificence. That’s racism. That’s eugenics. They usually’re going to maintain throwing that within the leisure area as a result of every part is there. The media controls every part. And proper now, Trump has it underneath his boot.”
Below Skydance’s takeover — and with Trump’s hand guiding each main federal company — CBS, BET, and different Paramount properties are being compelled to bear “complete opinions” to make sure “viewpoint range.” Translated: no extra liberal, inclusive, or racially aware content material that would offend MAGA sensibilities.
Throughout the identical PBS phase, anchor Geoff Bennett requested Byers:“Is that this form of the brand new template for future media offers — this form of new period of political appeasement?”
Byers answered “sure.”
“So long as everybody performs ball — pay the settlement, dismantle DEI, set up a political censor — then your deal goes by way of,” Byers mentioned. “That is the best way offers get finished, not less than as long as Trump is in workplace.”
Black voices, Black areas, and Black storytelling are being sacrificed in these offers.
Trump’s administration has already gutted DEI efforts in federal companies, banned references to systemic racism, and pushed new schooling tips that eradicate or sanitize discussions of slavery and civil rights.
Now, the media — as soon as a examine on presidential energy — is now a pawn in his political empire.
“Don’t be silly,” @TalkUrShxxtNene concluded in her viral takedown. “Everybody likes to see the glass half-full as an alternative of that b**ch half-empty. That is what erasure appears like.”
The publish Trump’s Authoritarian Agenda: Media Takeover, BET’s Dismantling, and the Whitewashing of America appeared first on The Washington Informer.
