Media's suck-up moment
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Illustration: Allie Carl/Axios
Fearing political retribution and strained by new business challenges, media companies that once covered President-elect Trump with skepticism — and in many cases, disdain — are reconsidering their approach.
Why it matters: Trump's decisive victory in November has forced media executives to put their business interests ahead of their personal politics.
Case-in-point: Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos, a longtime Democrat whose wife served as the ambassador to the Bahamas during the Obama administration, met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago this past week.
- "Morning Joe" co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, who railed against Trump for years, met with Trump in an hour-plus meeting at Mar-a-Lago last month, infuriating their loyal audience. Scarborough said the reaction showed "a massive disconnect ... between social media and the real world."
State of play: Amid a record media trust deficit, outlets once critical of Trump are now making overtures to the former and future president, and the majority of American voters who voted for him.
- TIME magazine not only named Trump "Person of the Year," but the magazine's CEO, Jessica Sibley, chanted "USA! USA!" alongside the president-elect as he rang the New York Stock Exchange opening bell.
- A week after Trump's victory, two executives from TelevisaUnivision, the parent of the largest U.S.-based Spanish-language broadcaster, flew to Mar-a-Lago so the president-elect could personally thank them for election support, The Wall Street Journal reported.
- L.A. Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong vowed (on Fox News, no less) to balance out his editorial board with conservative voices. He also has discussed plans to add a digital "bias meter" for editorials and opinion columns.
- Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos (who, like Soon-Shiong, overruled his staff to kill a Harris endorsement) said at The New York Times' DealBook Summit earlier this month that he's "actually very optimistic" about Trump's second term.
The big picture: Compare that to the resistance media era that started in 2016, with outlets like The Washington Post garnering tough-on-Trump reputations (and thousands of subscriptions).
- This time around, national outlets — struggling to regain viewers and subscribers — are trying to signal they're no longer out for blood.
Between the lines: Another business consideration for news outlets reversing course is the legal risks associated with getting on Trump's bad side.
- ABC's $15 million defamation settlement with Trump shocked some legal experts who say ABC could've easily won the case. ABC has declined to say why it settled. But media onlookers see the settlement as a possible effort to avoid further scrutiny and legal attacks from the president-elect.
- The settlement comes amid a barrage of major lawsuits being lobbed at media companies by Trump. Those costly lawsuits sap outlets of time, legal resources and morale.
What we're watching: Tech titans facing historic regulatory scrutiny are also scrambling to be inside Trump's tent this time around.
- Meta, Amazon and Open AI have each donated $1 million to Trump's inauguration. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Bezos have all met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago since the election.
- TikTok faces a potential ban in the U.S., barring a Supreme Court intervention. Meta faces a historic government antitrust trial next year that seeks to unwind its acquisitions of WhatsApp and Instagram.
- Google has been found guilty of one major antitrust investigation around its search business and is facing another antitrust case around its ads business. Both cases threaten to break up the company.
