The Ellisons, Israel and will Network 10 fight for the right?

In this edition of On Background, the anti-woke, pro-Israel news chief whom Network Ten’s billionaire owner has paid $227 million to hire, The Roar loses its voice, and Schwartz Media’s new poet-in-chief.

The Ellisons, Israel and will Network 10 fight for the right?

The single biggest story in US media this week was the appointment of former New York Times columnist Bari Weiss as editor-in-chief of Network Ten-owner Paramount’s most important newsroom, CBS, alongside the company’s US$150 million ($228 million) acquisition of substack-housed The Free Press.

Weiss, best known in media circles for her openly hardline pro-Israel, anti-woke views, will report directly to Paramount’s new owner David Ellison in a bid to fix the ailing, historic news network. The appointment of Weiss, a self-described “Zionist fanatic”, has generated plenty of noise, especially given the partisanship plaguing US media.

She’s someone described by Ten’s national affairs editor Hugh Riminton on X this week as his “ultimate boss”.

Having supposedly been the most liberal writer on News Corp’s Wall Street Journal and the most conservative on The New York Times, Weiss has coined her set of beliefs as “radically centrist”, though since launching The Free Press in 2021, the commentary-led substack magazine has taken an increasingly Trumpian line on culture issues and staunch support of Israel, hallmarks of the new right.

Her views aren’t limited to just Trumpism or the right, but some are already viewing her as a proxy for Ellison in the newsroom, and a sign of where the billionaire scion’s (and Network Ten owner) own politics lie.

While CBS News constitutes a fraction of Paramount’s total revenue, Ellison’s takeover has signalled a shift toward Trump himself. Paramount signed a multibillion-dollar UFC deal, had pledged to make more domestic movies and is bringing in Weiss. The White House will host a UFC Fight Night next year … on Donny’s 80th birthday.

Reports this week 60 Minutes is in negotiations over a presidential interview mark a thawing of CBS from the fake-news cold. It settled a lawsuit with Trump over the show’s interview with Kamala Harris last year, which prompted the exit of its top producer, citing a loss of journalistic independence.

Weiss aligns with both David and Larry Ellison on Israel, the single most contested issue in the media today and for Ellison senior politically, who funded his son’s takeover.

The Palestine issue continues to reverberate in Australian media. This week alone, there have been stories including our coverage of SBS’s Palestine editorial guidance, revelations the ABC’s Lattouf legal bill has reached $2.5 million and the National Press Club allegedly cancelling a guest who planned to talk about Gaza.

Ellison, who made his billions through his technology company Oracle, gave Friends of the IDF $26 million, its biggest ever donation in 2017, offered Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu a position on Oracle’s board in 2021, and through his foundation donated or pledged $522 million to the Tony Blair Institute since 2021 alone, with the former British PM emerging as a key player in a post-war Gaza.

The CBS eye - will it look down under?

On Background wrote last week that the Ellison team hasn’t turned its attention to Australia, or Ten, which essentially counts as a rounding error on the company’s global finances.

But Ellison’s politics, like any proprietor, must be taken seriously when considering its eventual impact on Australia’s media landscape.

In America, a push to the right, if that’s what will happen, has rationale. Fox News is in the midst of a financial purple patch as advertisers and viewers flock to the network due to the normalisation of its right-wing rhetoric.

It’s a different story in Australia, with most legacy news services that cater to the right largely kept afloat by ageing audiences and wealthy proprietors.

Fox’s local equivalent Sky News Australia has a raft of headwinds, including a rebrand which will redefine the network. It also faces structural challenges to its ageing broadcast audience caused by a decade-long trend of Foxtel declines, and it axed Freya Fires Up, its first attempt to bring in a younger audience after just six shows.

Nine’s talkback stations, including 2GB and 3AW, are also in limbo. They are no longer the force they once were and the company is trying to attract an offer worthy of a sale.

The team behind the former home to Alan Jones, ADH, are the only potential buyers of Nine Radio to have revealed themselves thus far. They have sidelined a relaunch under the banner of Fox News-alternative Newsmax in favour of working on a radio deal.

Gina Rinehart has been touted as a backer of ADH, though one source in her camp told this masthead this year she rejected the opportunity, but that didn’t stop ADH invoking her name in meetings to help aid their cause, apparently.

Weiss claims to be the centrist warrior who will return CBS to its Walter Cronkite days, but with such a clear-cut set of views, it’ll be interesting to see how that goes.

Split Eurovision

Nothing appears beyond the Israel issue at the moment. As the broadcaster of the globe’s pre-eminent singing and pageantry contest, Eurovision, Israel’s participation in next year’s edition is apparently bringing further headaches for SBS.

With Spain, Ireland, Slovenia, the Netherlands and Iceland all flagging intentions last month to pull out should Israel be allowed to compete next year, SBS viewers have urged the broadcaster to throw their support behind a boycott, while Germany’s chancellor Friedrich Merz this week said he’d boycott the event if Israel was ousted.

Amid the barrage of complaints that typically grace inboxes and mailrooms of all media companies, SBS received about 60 complaints relating to Eurovision and its coverage should Israel be allowed to compete on a single day and that number rolling on through the rest of the month, according to emails seen by On Background.

Losing its Roar

There have been some pretty wild machinations going on in the background of one of Australia’s top read sports websites, The Roar this year, before its editor Tony Harper informed readers this week the site is going dark.

There has been a sale process rolling on in the background for several months, with Roar owner PlayUp and The Sporting News in discussions which appear to have fallen over, while in August, there was a now-deleted article claiming the site had been sold to cosmetic surgery entrepreneur Daniel Corsello for $1.

“Due to issues beyond the control of our editorial team, we are unable to publish content to the site until further notice,” Harper wrote this week.

News is a hard game in 2025. We hope The Roar can find a way to return to publishing soon.

(The Roar site was back up and running on Friday, October 10)

Erik Jensen, poet laureate-in-chief

No one could accuse Schwartz Media of wavering in its arts coverage amid nationwide cuts to culture news. But Schwartz has taken things a step further, with subscribers of The Saturday Paper offered a cut-price deal of $35 for both editions of editor-in-chief Erik Jensen’s own poetry.

What a deal! Jensen is of course also the chief executive of Schwartz Media, and the offer comes courtesy of Black Inc., Schwartz Media’s sister company.

It gives subscribers an insight into the mind of Morry Schwartz’s top lieutenant during his editing process, with a preview of Jensen’s work The wire hanger.