Conservative analysts expose 'fundamental lie' behind CBS News shakeup

Two conservative analysts exposed the "fundamental lie" behind the recent shakeup at CBS News during a podcast interview on Tuesday.

The acquisition of The Free Press by Paramount Skydance and the subsequent installation of Bari Weiss as Editor-in-Chief at CBS News was not only a sizable shift in the U.S. media landscape, but it also revealed something unsettling about the state of the media, according to Tim Miller, host of "The Bulwark Podcast," and Jonathan Last, a writer at the outlet. They argued in a new podcast episode on Tuesday that the move shows media companies are now seen as vehicles for appeasing President Donald Trump, something people who supported the shakeup at CBS News often deny.

"It does not matter to the Ellisons at all what the ratings are on CBS Evening News and how much money CBS News loses as a division or makes as a division," Last said. "... And same with the Washington Post. Jeff Bezos doesn't give a s--- what the Washington Post loses or makes as a business. What he cares about is Blue Origin."

"So, Blue Origin has to get a bunch of government contracts in order to succeed," he continued. "... And so, in order to get government contracts to make that succeed, the Washington Post has to lose $100 million or something like that. And that's like the weird web in which we now exist, where all of these media properties are only valuable as ways to signal to the strongman that other companies are deserving of favors in government business."

"That betrays the fundamental lie that like defenders of Bari Weiss and defenders of Bezos engage in when they try to talk about this as if, 'Oh well, these were stagnant businesses and you need to shake it up and try something different,'" Miller said.

"They want to make it seem like that's what's happening because what they're actually doing is corruption," he continued.