This is edition 2025/170 of the Ten@10 newsletter.
Hi all,
This is the Ten@10, where I collate and summarise ten news items you generally won't see in the mainstream media.
Enjoy!
1. The Assassination of Charlie Kirk: Free Speech and Billionaire Media
Phillip Crump
- 🕊️ Campus Tragedy – Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, was assassinated on Sept 10 at the University of Utah by Tyler Robinson, who now faces the death penalty.
- 🔒 Heightened Security – Ben Shapiro vows to keep speaking on campuses but only with tighter, airport-style security and no outdoor events.
- 📺 Free-Speech Debate – Jimmy Kimmel’s sudden suspension after remarks on Kirk sparked free-speech concerns, though industry insiders see it as a commercial move amid media upheaval.
- 🧩 Musk’s “Everything App” – Elon Musk folded Twitter (now X) into xAI, aiming to blend social media, AI, news, finance, and shopping into one platform.
- 💼 Ellison’s Media Power – Oracle founder Larry Ellison, briefly the world’s richest man, is driving massive media consolidation, outpacing even Musk.
- 🎬 Paramount–Skydance Deal – Ellison backed his son David’s Skydance merger with Paramount after a controversial $16 million Trump settlement and FCC approval requiring CBS bias oversight.
- 🎭 CBS Shake-Up – CBS canceled The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and appointed conservative Kenneth Weinstein as bias-monitoring ombudsman, alarming newsroom staff.
- 📰 Bari Weiss Acquisition – CBS is near a $100–$200 million purchase of Bari Weiss’s The Free Press, with Weiss expected to steer CBS News editorial direction, unsettling journalists.
- 📱 TikTok U.S. Deal – Oracle, Silver Lake, and Andreessen Horowitz plan to acquire TikTok’s U.S. business in an 80/20 split with ByteDance, creating a separate U.S. app and algorithm.
- 🎥 Warner Bros. Target – Ellison is preparing a bid for Warner Bros. Discovery (CNN, HBO), potentially giving him media holdings worth up to $95 billion.
- 📰 Industry Realignment – Murdoch finalized succession to son Lachlan, while Ellison’s moves signal sweeping consolidation of streaming, news, and AI-driven media.
