The WSJ closes regional bureaus as Emma Tucker continues restructuring, The Atlantic's union demands answers from management on OpenAI partnership, David Ellison's Skydance sweetens its deal for Paramount, Charles Barkley continues savaging Warner Bros. Discovery management, TikTok reportedly works to create a clone of its algorithm, Sony Pictures embraces A.I., and more. But first, the A1. 

The Verdict Vendetta

CNN Photo Illustration/Fox News

Donald Trump's media allies are demanding retribution in the wake of his conviction.

Following weeks of attacks targeting the historic hush money case against the former president, prominent right-wing media figures immediately flooded the public discourse Thursday with extreme and disturbing rhetoric after Trump was found guilty on 34 felony counts.

On Fox News and other right-wing outlets, pro-Trump media personalities erupted in anger, blaming everyone from Judge Juan Merchan and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to President Joe Biden and the entire U.S. justice system for the "disgraceful" conviction.

While not surprising, the furious bluster reverberating across right-wing media still carried its intended effect, burning away public trust in America's core institutions and leaving a lasting impact on the legitimacy of the rule of law in the U.S. 

The toxic commentary is also enflaming desires of retribution held by Trump supporters, with popular right-wing media figures openly declaring their hope that the GOP candidate to nakedly seek revenge against his critics, should he emerge victorious in November and return to the Oval Office. 

Indeed, it is not only that MAGA Media personalities are assailing the unanimous guilty verdict returned by a jury of 12 New Yorkers, calling it unfair and rigged. Some of the right's most popular talking heads are openly calling for the weaponization of government to seek retribution against Trump's political opponents.

The Daily Wire's Matt Walsh, who commands a following of millions of subscribers on YouTube and social media, said after the verdict that Trump "should make and publish a list of ten high ranking Democrat criminals who he will have arrested when he takes office." The Federalist chief executive Sean Davis said he wants "to see lists of which Democrat officials are going to be put in prison." And Fox News' Jesse Watters declared, "We're going to vanquish the evil forces that are destroying this republic."

Suffice to say, that unhinged, reckless, and dangerous rhetoric is not normal. And it even exceeds some of the highly charged rhetoric that played out during Trump's administration when then-Special Counsel Robert Mueller probed the then-president over his ties to Russia. But as the legal walls actually begin to close in on Trump, the commentary in right-wing media is getting angrier, more menacing, and taking a markedly darker tone.

In the hours after the verdict was handed down Thursday, talk of the U.S. having transformed into a third-world dictatorship was the norm in pro-Trump media, with the term "banana republic" regularly tossed around. In fact, there was little room for disagreement with the radical and warped viewpoint. 

"Import the Third World, become the Third World. That’s what we just saw," right-wing extremist Tucker Carlson declared on X. "This won’t stop Trump. He’ll win the election if he’s not killed first. But it does mark the end of the fairest justice system in the world. Anyone who defends this verdict is a danger to you and your family."

As has become the new normal, Fox News also promoted a parade of dishonest right-wing talking points to its sizable audience. Laura Ingraham declared that "the Democrats are showing [the country] what real power is ... the type of power we usually see dictators exercise in China and Cuba and North Korea." Sean Hannity complained that "the foundation of our constitutional republic" is "literally dying before your eyes."

That rhetoric is, obviously, detached from reality. The U.S. is not a third world country. Trump got his day in court and was treated by the judge, by all accounts, quite fairly. Biden did not direct so-called deep state forces to engage in "lawfare" against Trump. 

But the endless streams of poison flooding into the public discourse comes with consequences. It not only offers a preview of just how ugly the 2024 race will soon become, it sets the stage for Trump, if he manages to make his way back into the White House, to abuse power and deform the federal institutions to serve his purposes.

Perversely, it has primed a swath of Americans into believing that such behavior would not only be warranted, but necessary.

The Drudge Report

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The New York Times

The Washington Post

TIME

The New Yorker

CNN Photo Illustration/Mary Altaffer/AP

✂️ Tucker's Trimming: The WSJ on Thursday shuttered three of its regional U.S. bureaus and laid off a string of staffers. The layoffs, which prompted an hour-long protest from the paper's journalists, came "despite a surge in paid subscribers, strong profits at its parent company, and a new nine-figure licensing deal with OpenAI," NPR's David Folkenflik noted. At least eight staffers lost their jobs in the latest round of cuts, following layoffs implemented by editor-in-chief Emma Tucker in the paper's D.C. newsroom. In a memo to staffers, Tucker explained the decision was part of a "reader-first strategy" and that the outlet was "moving away from regional and local general news." She added, "We have made a lot of changes in recent months, and I can say that we are very much delivering for our readers." A spokesperson for The WSJ said Tucker "is reshaping our newsroom with an eye towards digital growth, subscription growth and high-quality journalism. While we recognize change can be difficult, it is necessary to ensure we have the right structure in place to support our objectives." Folkenflik has more.

CNN Photo Illustration/Jason Redmond/AFP/Getty Images

Machine-Generated Misinfo: The dystopian — and distressing — future is here. OpenAI said Thursday that Russia, China, and Iran had weaponized its artificial intelligence products to wage information warfare across the world. OpenAI said the disinformation operations, which it ultimately disrupted, focused on a wide-array of topics, including Russia's invasion of Ukraine. While the Sam Altman-led company said that the operations do not appear to have "benefited from meaningfully increased audience engagement," it did acknowledge that using A.I. allowed the actors to generate content "in greater volumes and with fewer language errors than would have been possible for human operators alone." The NYT's Cade Metz has more.

🔎 Zooming in: The weaponization of A.I. products such as ChatGPT has been a worry of disinformation and cybersecurity experts since the technology went mainstream last year. Harnessing the powerful technology will allow bad faith actors to churn out deceptive propaganda in far greater volumes than was possible only a few years ago. That will leave companies such as OpenAI with a great responsibility to identify influence campaigns before they are able to infiltrate the public discourse. 

CNN Photo Illustration/Ore Huiying/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Cloning the TikTok Algo: TikTok is preparing for a scenario in which it is actually banned in the U.S. That's according to Reuters' Krystal Hu and Sheila Dang who reported Thursday that the company "is working on a clone of its recommendation algorithm for its 170 million U.S. users that may result in a version that operates independently of its Chinese parent." The duo added that the work commenced before the divest-or-ban law legislation was passed. TikTok said in a statement that the Reuters story was "misleading and factually inaccurate." A Reuters spokesperson said the outlet stood by its reporting. Read the full story here.

CNN Photo Illustration/Damian Dovarganes/AP

Moviemaking With Machines: Sony Pictures is ready to embrace generative A.I. The studio's boss, Tony Vinciquerra, said at a conference Thursday that the company is "very focused" on the rapidly advancing technology and will work to integrate it into its workflow. "We’ll be looking at ways to use AI to produce films for theaters and television in more efficient ways, using AI primarily," Vinciquerra said. THR's Winston Cho has more.

🔎 Zooming in: The major studios, of course, are constrained on what they can and cannot do with A.I. by the agreements they have with writers and actors. And while studio executives might foresee a time when A.I. can be deployed in meaningful ways, most acknowledge that the technology in its current state is not capable of producing premium content. But this is, unquestionably, where the industry is heading.