If It Ain’t Broke…

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The maxim reads, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Advice which generally means don’t try to fix something that works. The odds are you’ll mess it up. In the context of the CBS blockbuster newsmagazine Sixty Minutes, it seems to apply. Unless of course, fixing something broken is not the goal of the new owners of CBS.

Just to bring you up to date, take a deep breath here. Skydance Productions, founded and controlled by David Ellison with a big investment by his father, Oracle founder Larry, bought Paramount Global, parent of CBS, from Paramount’s controlling owner, Shari Redstone. Now breathe in.

As I’ve reported previously, Paramount needed antitrust clearances from several federal agencies to clear the $8 billion merger and observers thought that might be difficult to achieve because Donald Trump was a frequent critic of CBS News, which he had sued, and the CBS program The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Redstone had tried to remain apolitical during her stewardship of Paramount and CBS but faced with the need to get a green light for the sale, she settled Trump’s lawsuit against the advice of most legal advisors, who thought the suit frivolous. That cost CBS $16 million. The Skydance purchase was approved. Skydance is now seeking approval to buy Warner Brothers Discovery for about $111 billion. That would include CNN.

Just in case you have any doubt about the quid pro quo in the Paramount deal, the Federal Communications Commission, one of the agencies that had to sign off on the deal, released filings publicly on July 23, 2025, just one day before formally voting 2-1 to approve the acquisition. The filings were submitted by Skydance’s General Counsel, Stephanie Kyoko McKinnon, and addressed directly to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr. They served as a binding framework of concessions to secure regulatory approval.

The official filings outlined several explicit actions to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. Dismantling DEI Infrastructure: the combined company would completely eliminate Paramount’s “Office of Global Inclusion” and dissolve any teams or individual job roles focused on DEI. Scrapping Hiring Goals: Skydance committed to ending all numerical and “aspirational goals” related to the race, ethnicity, sex, or gender of job applicants and employee hires in the United States. Scrubbing Public Messaging: The company promised to remove all references to DEI from its public messaging, websites, social media, internal training materials, and corporate messaging. Ideological Bias Mandate: In a related move to satisfy the Trump administration’s scrutiny of CBS News, the filings also committed to establishing a corporate “ombudsman” for at least two years to investigate internal and external complaints of ideological bias.

It should not surprise anyone that Skydance fell right in line with the Trump administration’s demands. Both Larry and David Ellison are widely considered to be closely aligned with Donald Trump and his political movement. Both have developed strong business and personal relationships with Trump. Larry Ellison is a major bankroller of Republican campaigns.

David Ellison proceeded to cancel The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, the number one rated broadcast in late night. Trump cheered. He hired Bari Weiss, an opinion columnist who had started her own web site, to run CBS News as editor-in-chief. Wiess had no broadcast experience and proceeded with a wave of firings. She replaced co-anchors John Dickerson and Maurice DuBois with Tony Dokoupil on the CBS Evening News, the house that Walter Cronkite built. Both Dickerson and DuBois quit. Dickerson had been with CBS 16 years. DuBois 21 years. She then shut down the entire CBS News Radio department, firing 90 staff members and leaving 700 affiliates without a source of network news. That was the 99-year-old house that Edward R. Murrow built.

Then she turned her aim on Sixty Minutes. For the other actions, Ellison and Weiss justified themselves on financial grounds. But they did not supply convincing evidence to show that they were eliminating losing positions. In the case of Sixty Minutes, they didn’t even try to make that argument. It would have been a lie.

The 2025-2026 season of 60 Minutes experienced a significant ratings increase, averaging 9.1 million viewers. This represents a +9% growth in linear viewership and a +5% increase in the key adults 25-54 demographic compared to the prior season. In fact, 60 Minutes ratings on television have exhibited a resilient and broadly upward trend, retaining its title as the #1 news program in America for 52 consecutive years.

And for those who argue the future for CBS is on the digital realm, note that the show’s total reach has been bolstered by significant multi-platform growth, expanding its audience beyond traditional TV broadcasts. Digital metrics reflect massive gains… 2.5 billion video views across major social networks (more than double the previous year), 85% year-over-year growth on TikTok. This is not a failure. It is instead proof of legacy media making the transition to the digital age.

CBS’s motivation for attacking Sixty Minutes is transparently clear. Donald Trump doesn’t like the program, so the new owners don’t like it either.

In short order Bari delayed the broadcast of a report by correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi about the Trump administration’s deportation of Venezuelan men to the maximum-security El Salvador prison known as CECOT. A new statement from the Trump administration was edited in. Alfonsi was public and vocal in her outrage, calling the decision “political, not editorial.” Correspondent Anderson Cooper announced he would leave the program after twenty years. He did not explain why. He will continue to anchor Anderson Cooper 360° on CNN. Of course, Skydance may wind up owning that too.

After Sixty Minutes ended its season in May, Bari fired executive producer Tanya Simon, a 30-year veteran of the program, alongside executive editor Draggan Mihailovich and correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega. Former CBS correspondent Steve Kroft and current correspondent Scott Pelley openly revolted.

Bari replaced Simon with Nick Bilton, a tech journalist and filmmaker with no traditional TV broadcast news experience. At his first meeting with the Sixty Minutes staff, Bilton was confronted by an outraged Pelley. Pelley relentlessly grilled the newly installed executive producer and accused Weiss of “murdering ’60 Minutes.’ She does not love this place; she was brought in to kill it and is doing exactly that.” Leaked audio was obtained by media outlets, which they haven’t posted but are reporting extensively.

The next day Bilton ripped Pelley’s “performative display of hostility” in a letter to the journalist, firing him “for cause.”

Dear Mr. Pelley:

I meant what I said in my letter last week to the 60 Minutes team: joining 60 Minutes is the honor of my career and I am grateful to be working alongside the people who have contributed to the most important television journalism brand this country has ever produced.

While I’m new to 60 Minutes, I’ve devoted my career to investigative journalism and storytelling. I started this job excited to collaborate and to benefit from the wisdom and experience of the 60 Minutes veterans, with you among them. For that reason, one of the first things I did in my new role was call you to talk and invite you to dinner.

It is a profound disappointment that you rejected that overture and chose ambush instead. Yesterday, you hijacked my first meeting with staff to disparage me, my qualifications, and my intentions with remarkable incivility and contempt. I welcome a diversity of viewpoints and respectful debate among the team, but this was nothing of the sort. Yesterday’s performative display of hostility — enacted in front of the staff instead of in a civil, private conversation — demonstrated that you have no interest in contributing to the future success of the show, or approaching my new tenure with a mind open to collaboration and progress.

I am here to deliver first-in-class news programming, not to make headlines about newsroom drama. I am eager to work alongside those who share this goal.

Despite yesterday’s misconduct, I had hoped that in sitting down with you today we could find a path forward together. You made clear that you are not interested in such a path. Your antipathy to the future of the show has come through loud and clear. And I have heard you.

I therefore write on behalf of CBS News, Inc. (“CBS”) to inform you that your employment with CBS is terminated for cause effective immediately. Enclosed is your formal termination letter.

Sincerely,
Nick Bilton
Executive Producer, 60 Minutes

Pelley released his own letter, repeating many of the arguments he reportedly made during the meeting.

There has never been anything in America like 60 Minutes.

The Sunday tradition is the most successful program of any kind in history. For more than a decade, its innovative growth on every major online platform has extended its reach to countless millions around the world. This spring, at the end of our 58th season, 60 Minutes grew rapidly with an unheard-of 9% jump in viewers on CBS.  

“60” has been the number-one program in America for decades because our beloved audience finds integrity, quality, and humanity in our stories. When stewardship of the program passed to my colleagues and me, our responsibility was to expand energetically into a new age of media technology while preserving the values our audience expects. Now, the new owner of our network is casting this legend aside, apparently to curry a moment of favor with the Trump administration.  

The waste is heartbreaking.

Last month, 60 Minutes lost its DNA when our entire senior leadership and two of our best on-air correspondents were cruelly fired without cause. Good people were silenced because they stood up for our audience. They stood for fairness against the forces of political bias; they stood for professionalism against chaos.
 
For my part, new management has instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story. I’ve been told to include assertions that are unverified. To date, in every case, I have managed to ignore these instructions or refuse them. Recently, politicians have been invited to choose correspondents for interviews on the broadcast. Giving politicians control over 60 Minutes interviews is not how this is done. Finally, incompetence and unprofessionalism in the new management have wreaked havoc. In a case involving one of my stories, the entire program came within 19 minutes of not getting on the air at all.

At 60 Minutes, we have fought harder than anyone knows to save the program that became an American icon. We owed that to our millions of viewers. I am deeply moved by the thousands of wishes we have received to “keep up the good fight.” Most of the men and women of CBS News are still in that fight. But now the collapse of values at the top has become untenable. The leadership of 60 Minutes is no longer recognizable. The principles I hold dear are gone, and so I must leave as well.  

I depart after 37 years at CBS with one emotion—a heart brimming with gratitude for the men and women of CBS News who encouraged and enriched my work, very often at the risk of their own lives. I pray for a day when those people and their ideals are honored again—a day when sanity, competence, and courage return.  

Scott Pelley

Weiss addressed Pelley’s statement herself on the regular staff conference call the next morning….

Weiss: “I know I speak for myself, and I hope I speak for everyone here when I say that I’m only interested in working in a newsroom that is built on trust and mutual respect. We cannot do our work without it. That foundation was broken on Monday, and despite our attempts to engage with Scott Pelley and to find a way back, unfortunately we weren’t able to do so, and so we had to part ways.

We did not want that to happen, but that’s the path that he chose. That unfortunate outcome does not discount from the amazing contributions and work that Scott Pelley has done for CBS and for 60 Minutes over the course of his career.”

Bari Weiss

And that caused Pelley to send out a second statement of his own:

I’m saddened to see the transcript of the CBS News morning editorial meeting.

Bari Weiss knows wbat she said is not true. In the meeting on Tuesday, in which I was effectively fired, there was no effort of any kind to “find a way back,” as Weiss said in the editorial meeting. At no point did anyone in the Tuesday meeting suggest that there could be steps taken by either side that would lead to a resolution. Weiss and Tom Cibrowski were openly hostile from the start. ”Firing” was raised by Cibrowski in the first 15 seconds. No CBS executive, at any time, suggested “a way back.” To say so now is disingenuous. And they know it.

In fact, Weiss, Cibrowski and Nick Bilton refused to answer my questions. I asked Weiss a number of questions about why she fired the entire senior staff of 60 Minutes a few days before and without cause.

“I’m not answering that question,” she said.
I asked why she did not come to 60 Minutes’ offices to explain her actions.
“I’m not answering that question.”


Why did she fire 60 Minutes Executive Producer Tanya Simon?
“I’m not answering that question.”
Why fire correspondent Cecilia Vega?
“I’m not answering that question.”
Why fire correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi?
“I’m not answering that question.”


Throughout the meeting, the CBS executives were abrupt, dismissive and uninterested in dialogue. Suddenly, and to my surprise, Cibrowski declared, “This conversation is over!”
“Why?” I asked. “I’m happy to answer your questions.”
“This conversation is over!” Cibrowski repeated, raising his voice and standing to show me the door.
“I’m happy to keep talking,” I added.


No constructive dialogue was allowed by the CBS executives at any point. I was stonewalled for about 10 minutes and then, for no apparent reason, “This conversation is over.”


I am pained that the staff of CBS News was misled in the Wednesday morning conference call. These executives cannot gain the trust of the staff with lies. This is antithetical to everything ·we stand for and reveals contempt for what journalists do.

Scott Pelley

The lawyers can battle over contracts and obligations. I’m sure Pelley, who is 68-years old and has been earning millions each year for decades considered his action before taking his very public step to confront his new bosses. When you do that to the boss there are consequences. A bigger question will be what becomes of the property that revolutionized news programs on television. And what will become of responsible journalism overall.

Sixty Minutes was not perfect. A product created by humans never is. But Sixty Minutes tried its best to adhere to a standard and it did so better than most. I find the allegations Pelley makes in his letter most disturbing.

The Society of Professional Journalists, to promote ethical journalism, emphasizes four principles. I teach these to students in my course on Media Law and Ethics. The first is, “Seek truth and report it.” If journalists are denied the right to do that. If they are required instead to report what their owners, publishers, or government tell them to report. We are lost.

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It’s Still the Kennedy Center

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A federal judge ruled today that Donald Trump’s name must be removed from the Kennedy Center. The decision says the Trump appointed Kennedy Center Board acted illegally when it voted to add Trump’s name to the Center. The court also ordered a halt to a plan to temporarily close the center for renovations.

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper sided with Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH), a member of the Kennedy Center’s Board of Trustees, who challenged both the name change and the proposed two-year closure. Her lawsuit, filed last December, argued that “[b]ecause Congress named the center by statute, changing the Kennedy Center’s name requires an act of Congress.”

In his 94-page decision, Judge Cooper wrote, “The Kennedy Center’s organic statute makes crystal clear that the Center is to be named for President Kennedy, and it cannot bear any other formal name or public memorial based on the Board’s unilateral say-so. Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it.”

Trump’s response came quickly in a post on his social media platform:

Most of Trump’s “facts” in the post are lies. As usual, Trump’s rant speaks for itself.

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Memorial Day

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Memorial Day is a day for reflection. The day honors the men and women who died while serving in the U.S. military. Observed every year on the last Monday of May, Memorial Day was originally called Decoration Day in a nod to the tradition of placing flowers or other decorative displays at gravesites.

Memorial Day dates back to the Civil War, in which 620,000 soldiers died. The high death toll due in part to the fact that the total includes the fallen from both sides. Approximately 360,000 Union soldiers and 260,000 Confederate soldiers. All Americans.

What we now call Memorial Day became a federal holiday in 1971. Today, we remember our fallen from all our wars.

Post-Civil War Military Death Tolls
War or ConflictYears of U.S. InvolvementTotal U.S. Military Deaths
World War II1941–1945405,399
World War I1917–1918116,516
Vietnam War1965–197358,220
Korean War1950–195336,574
Global War on Terror (Iraq & Afghanistan)2001–2021~7,073
Spanish-American War18982,446
Persian Gulf War1990–1991383

It is common on this day to visit cemeteries and memorials, such as the Arlington National Cemetery, to place American flags and wreaths on the graves of the fallen. At 3:00 p.m. local time, all Americans are encouraged to pause for a minute of silence to reflect on those who made the ultimate sacrifice. Many communities host local parades and commemorative ceremonies to honor their local fallen heroes.

It is also common for the civilian leaders of our government to pay tribute by placing a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Solder. Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, and Pete Hegseth performed those duties at Arlington on this day. Trump paid special tribute in a formal address at Arlington to the thirteen soldiers killed, so far, in our current war in Iran.

The United States has a long tradition requiring the military to answer to the civilian leadership. The Constitution makes the president Commander-In-Chief but at the same time assigns to Congress the power to declare war. Congress hasn’t done that since June 4, 1942, when it declared war against Axis-aligned Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania during World War II. Prior to that, Congress declared war on Japan on December 8, 1941, followed by Germany and Italy on December 11, 1941.

Yet at least in my lifetime, we almost always seem to be at war. Since World War II, the United States has engaged in major conflicts—such as the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the post-9/11 wars—without formal declarations of war. Instead, military actions have been conducted under Authorizations for Use of Military Force (AUMFs) passed by Congress. Or via unilateral executive action. Congress did pass a so-called War Powers Resolution which is supposed to give the legislative branch the ability to stop a president’s unilateral military actions. But historically, Congress has rarely been willing or able to invoke it. And presidents, including the current administration, argue the Act is UnConstitutional.

The Framers feared concentrating the decision to go to war in the hands of a single person. James Madison noted that the executive branch was “most interested in war, and most prone to it,” which is why they entrusted the power to the legislature. The original draft of the Constitution gave Congress the power to make war. The Framers specifically changed this to declare war, with Madison recording that this substitution empowered the president only to repel “sudden attacks” on the country.

Presidents have gone well beyond that “original intent.”

Something to reflect on.

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Funerals at CBS

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There are two funerals on tap this week at CBS, Inc., the company where I spent the first decade of my professional career. When I joined it in 1974, it had recently changed its name from the Columbia Broadcasting System to better reflect its position as a major media company, not just a broadcaster. Its four core lines of business were Broadcasting (TV and radio), Records (music), Publishing (books and magazines), and Musical Instruments/Toys.

One thing it did not change was its leadership. William S. Paley was the legendary media tycoon who built CBS from a small, struggling 16-station radio network into a multi-billion-dollar global broadcasting and entertainment empire. He is widely regarded as one of the founding fathers of modern American broadcasting. Paley entered the picture in September 1928, when his wealthy family bought a majority stake a struggling radio company. He was subsequently named president at just 26 years old, going on to transform the then tiny network into a media empire. In 1974, he was firmly in control.

I can’t imagine what he would think of today’s CBS. Faced with a business climate which seems to value size over all else, CBS has gone from owner to owner in the post Paley years. Today it is owned by Paramount Skydance (formally known as Paramount, a Skydance Corporation). The network’s ownership structure underwent a massive shift when Skydance Media, led by tech heir and filmmaker David Ellison, officially completed an $8 billion merger with CBS’s previous parent company, Paramount Global, on August 7, 2025. Ellison’s takeover of the storied broadcasting was aided by a cash guarantee from his father Larry. Larry Ellison, the billionaire co-founder of Oracle, played the critical role of primary financial bankroller and majority equity owner in the Skydance acquisition of Paramount Global (and by extension, CBS).

Which brings us to this week’s funerals. Not unplanned deaths. These are self-inflicted executions.

The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

First to die will be The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. It will air its final episode on May 21. The Late Show franchise originally began on August 30, 1993, when David Letterman launched the inaugural Late Show with David Letterman. It was a bold attempt for CBS to compete in the late-night hours, where NBC’s Tonight Show had reigned supreme seemingly since the beginning of time. I remember gathering with my dormmates around the communal television after a long day of classes and studying to relax with Johnny Carson. When Carson retired, Letterman, who had a program which followed Carson, seemed the heir apparent. NBC instead chose comedian Jay Leno, leaving Letterman free. CBS swooped in.

When Letterman retired in 2015, after hosting for 22 years, CBS selected Stephen Colbert, host of his own show on the Comedy Central channel, to succeed him. In the picture above you can see Letterman and Colbert, together last week to throw their own wake. What better way than by gleefully tossing CBS office furniture, including a desk chair and sofas, plus watermelons — a signature Letterman gag — off the side of the building, aimed at the target below: a giant CBS logo.

The official reason provided by CBS for canceling The Late Show is financial, though the decision is heavily shadowed by a massive corporate and political timing controversy. CBS did not reveal detailed financial information. For many the show’s cancellation carries the stench of suspected political interference. Publicly, media critics, industry insiders, and even former host Letterman have vehemently rejected the financial excuse, calling CBS executives “lying weasels” and accusing them of political cowardice.

In July 2025, Paramount paid a $16 million legal settlement to Donald Trump after he sued over how 60 Minutes edited an interview with Kamala Harris. Days later, Colbert ruthlessly mocked his own parent company on air, calling the payout a “big fat bribe”. At the exact moment Colbert made these comments, Paramount was desperately seeking crucial regulatory approval from the Trump administration’s FCC for its $8 billion merger with Skydance Media. Just days after Colbert’s monologue, CBS stunned the industry by canceling the show. Weeks later, the FCC approved the multibillion-dollar Skydance merger. Trump later gloated publicly on social media, bragging that Colbert had been “fired.”

CBS Radio News

The second funeral will be held at the end of the Friday. On that day CBS permanently shuts down CBS News Radio, brining a historic 99-year era of American broadcasting to a sudden end.

Sometime when I was in grade school, I set my clock radio to wake me up at 7AM Chicago time. The radio was tuned to WBBM, the CBS owned station. At that time, I heard The CBS World News Roundup. I have started my day with that broadcast most days since. That is something in the neighborhood of 65 years. But the CBS News Roundup, and the CBS News Hourly reports at the top of every hour of every day, can trace their history back to 1928. This shutdown, ordered by Larry Ellison’s pick as Editor-in-Chief of CBS News, Bari Weiss, completely dismantles the original foundation of William Paley’s media empire and eliminates all remaining jobs within the radio news division.

Finances again are blamed. Legacy media has been heavily battered by years of declining advertising revenue and shifting listener habits as audiences steadily migrated toward podcasts, social media, and digital streaming platforms. But creative leadership could have explored options. The audio medium of radio is perfect for podcasts and streaming. The new bosses at CBS clearly had their eye only on the issue of paying down the Ellison’s debt. The shutdown functions as part of a larger 6% staff reduction across the entire CBS News workforce under the network’s new Paramount Skydance corporate ownership.

There was a time when the government insisted broadcasters devote time to news and public affairs. And they insisted content be fair and balanced and provide opportunities for differing viewpoints to be heard. This was the price one paid for the privilege of controlling one of the limited number of broadcast channels available, as the words of the Communications Act read, “In the public interest, convenience, and necessity.” There were also station owners who took that requirement to heart, desiring to serve their communities and their nation. Those visionaries are long gone.

The CBS Radio Network’s sudden exit leaves roughly 700 local affiliate stations nationwide without their primary hourly national news feeds. Major local all-news stations, like KNX in Los Angeles, WBBM in Chicago, and WWJ in Detroit, had to immediately assure listeners that local reporting would continue while they frantically negotiated new contracts with national syndication competitors like ABC News, Fox News, or NBC News.

Media historians and former network legends have reacted with grief, with former CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather lamenting, “It’s another piece of America that is gone”. Until this final week, CBS News Radio was the absolute last of the three original national U.S. radio networks (alongside NBC and the Mutual Broadcasting System) still operating under its original parent brand.

The World News Roundup was the longest-running continuous program in broadcast history. And the network famously invented modern wartime reporting with Edward R. Murrow’s London Blitz broadcasts.

I will have to find another way to start my day.

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Ted Turner 1938-2026

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Some people are visionaries. Some people are great leaders. Few people can do both at the same time. Ted Turner was one of those special people.

In the wake of his death on May 6 at the age of 87, much has been written about his brash in-your-face style. I never met or worked for him. But I have many friends and colleagues who did. To a person, they sing his praises as a tough but fair leader. That he was a visionary is clear when you consider his impact on media in general and journalism in particular.

I remember sitting in the WBBM-TV newsroom in Chicago in 1979, when Turner announced his plans for CNN, the Cable News Network. I was a writer and producer at the CBS owned station and most of the people in our newsroom though Turner’s idea was crazy. I thought otherwise.

Turner has already had a major impact on the media landscape. The 1970s saw the spread of cable television systems across the nation. These stations repeated the broadcasts of the TV stations in their markets, offering better TV pictures but little else. Turner saw an opportunity. That’s what visionaries do.

Operating out of Atlanta, in 1970 Turner bought WJRJ-TV, a struggling UHF station launched in 1967. He renamed it WTCG (Turner Communications Group), jokingly claiming it stood for “Watch This Channel Grow”. On December 17, 1976, Turner used a satellite to beam WTCG’s signal nationwide, creating the first nationally distributed independent station. He allowed the cable companies to use it for free. He made money selling what was now advertising for a nation-wide audience. In 1979, the call letters were changed to WTBS. Over the years, it used various brands like “SuperStation WTBS,” “TBS Superstation,” and finally just “TBS”.

That was just the start.

Turner’s defining achievement was CNN, the Cable News Network. which he launched in 1980. At a time when television news was confined to fixed evening broadcasts, he gambled that audiences would want a constant stream of reporting, and he was right. CNN’s live coverage of the Persian Gulf War made the network a global force and helped normalize the modern era of 24-hour news.

He was never content with one success. Turner expanded into entertainment with TNT, Cartoon Network, and Turner Classic Movies after acquiring valuable film and animation libraries. He also bought the Atlanta Braves, giving the city a beloved team and tying his name to Atlanta’s rise as a major sports and media center.

Turner’s public image was as memorable as his business record. He was outspoken, impatient with convention, and comfortable being controversial. That directness earned him the nickname “The Mouth of the South,” but it also reflected a confidence that helped him bet on ideas others dismissed.

Beyond media, Turner devoted much of his later life to philanthropy and conservation. He gave about $1 billion to establish the United Nations Foundation, co-founded the Nuclear Threat Initiative, and used his land holdings to support wildlife restoration, especially bison conservation.

He also became one of the country’s great landowners and a passionate advocate for the natural world. His ranches, herds, and preservation efforts made him a larger-than-life figure in environmental circles, while projects like Captain Planet reflected his desire to teach younger generations about stewardship.

In his final years, Turner lived with Lewy body dementia, which he disclosed in 2018. Even as his health declined, his influence remained visible in the media world he helped create and in the institutions that grew from his philanthropy. He is survived by his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Turner had three wives, including the Oscar winning actress Jane Fonda. They all survive him.

Turner’s life was marked by audacity, reinvention, and outsized effect. He turned cable television into a global platform, made philanthropy part of his public identity, and left behind a media landscape that still bears his imprint. For better or worse, much of modern television carries the stamp of Ted Turner. He was one-of-a-kind.

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John Roberts is …

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John Roberts is displeased. John Roberts is exasperated. John Roberts is frustrated. John Roberts is annoyed. John Roberts is irked. John Roberts is any other of the many synonyms my thesaurus suggested instead of the word I originally used, which it found to be “vulgar.”

What has the Chief Justice of the United States in high dudgeon (I thought of that one myself) is the reaction to the Court’s recent decision in Louisiana v. Callais, which drove a stake through the heart of the only section of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 the Court had not previously decimated. With the vote falling along party lines, many critics condemned the decision as racist and political.

Speaking to a conference of judges and lawyers from the 3rd U.S. Circuit in Pennsylvania, Roberts never mentioned the case, or any other, by name, but said the Court is “simply not part of the political process.”

“I think, at a very basic level, people think we’re making policy decisions, we’re saying we think this is how things should be, as opposed to what the law provides,” Roberts said. “I think they view us as purely political actors, which I don’t think is an accurate understanding of what we do.” He complained that people treat the Court with “hostility.” And his only nod to the fact that the outcry came in the wake of this latest decision was to say, “One thing we have to do is make decisions that are unpopular.”

I don’t know what is worse. That Roberts actually believes what he says. Or that he knows it’s a lie but thinks we are stupid enough to believe it.

Let us acknowledge, the idea of a nonpartisan, neutral court handing down rulings with no guiding light beyond their own jurisprudence is a long-running myth in American history. The court has and always will be a political institution. Yet in my lifetime, I have watched the Court drift farther and farther to the right. Away from the principals of individual rights which it had once protected.

The current conservative majority on the Court has also tossed aside precedent cases with abandon. Think of Dobbs, which overturned a fifty-year precedent on women’s rights. And it has increasingly placed itself in a position to make policy, a function that properly belongs with the elected branches of government which the Court now routinely ignores.

The Voting Rights Act was not one of the everlasting laws which lay on the books for centuries. It has been repeatedly reviewed and reauthorized by Congress, with the reauthorizations signed by the President. Most recently, it was reauthorized in 2006 and extended to 2031, when it was due for another review. This is the way the people’s voice is heard. The elected branches consider and enact the laws. This was a policy decision, whether the Chief agrees or not. There is no logic to a Supreme Court that decides, twenty years after a Congressional review, that the law is no longer to be enforced.

It was a blatantly political act. The proof immediately demonstrated as Louisiana and Tennessee moved to redraw their districts without waiting for the next regular reapportionment. This is what Donald Trump, afraid of losing his majority in Congress, begged the states where Republicans control the government to do. In each case, the new maps will affect districts currently held by people of color. People who just happen to be Democrats.

The New York Times in September 2025, analyzed the emergency applications made to the Supreme Court during the Biden and second Trump administrations. Their reporting shows the political bias of the Justices. Yes, it works both ways. But Trump has made far more use of the so-called “shadow” docket in his second term. His applications far outnumber those of Biden. And Trump has won most of them, usually on party-line votes.

If there is any doubt as to the partisanship of the current Supreme Court, take note once again at Louisiana v. Callais. Under normal Supreme Court procedure, the clerk waits 25 days to send the orders down, allowing for a motion for reconsideration to be filed. Immediately following the April 29, 2026, ruling, a group of voters asked the Court to bypass the usual 25-day waiting period, (Rule 45), arguing that the Louisiana legislature needed to move quickly to draw a new map for the 2026 elections.

On May 4, 2026, Justice Samuel Alito, the author of the Louisiana decision (also Dobbs), granted this request, allowing the judgment in Callais v. Louisiana to be sent down immediately, clearing the way for a new, Republican-favored map to be drawn. The three liberal dissenters screamed bloody murder. The Court itself it says it only expedites orders a few times a decade. Of course, this was one of those times because it was necessary for the majority to achieve its partisan goals. The Court’s partisan decisions have immediate consequences.

It is also worth noting that Alito’s written opinion exposes his hypocrisy. Just last December, in other voting rights case decided along partisan lines, Alito wrote, “The District Court improperly inserted itself into an active primary campaign, causing much confusion and upsetting the delicate federal-state balance in elections. (Abbott v. League of United Latin American Citizens. 2025), I guess confusion is only a problem if it benefits people of color. It is fine if it benefits White voters.

The partisan action by the nation’s highest court is being copied down the line. Yesterday Tennessee enacted a new congressional map that carves the city of Memphis into three separate parts. The Republican-led legislature used a strategy known as “cracking” to split Memphis—a majority-Black city and the state’s last remaining Democratic stronghold—among three predominantly white, Republican-leaning districts. By mixing the city’s voters of color with white suburban and rural populations, the map effectively dilutes the voting power of the minority community and is expected to eliminate the state’s only Democratic seat in Congress.

In Virginia, a state like Louisiana and Tennessee, was a Confederate state which permitted slavery, the state’s supreme court struck down a voter-approved redistricting amendment, upholding a lower court ruling that had declared the measure unconstitutional less than 24 hours after last week’s special election and briefly halted its implementation. The vote was 4-3, four Republicans outvoting three Democrats on the bench.

Let everyone understand what has happened here. In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decisions killing the Voting Rights Act, EVERY former Confederate state is moving to completely eliminate Black representatives. This should be more than enough proof that voting rights still need protection and racism is far from gone in this country. The Court effectively said the Fifteenth Amendment guarantees members of the minority the right to vote. But it does not guarantee them the right to have their vote count.

We are in the middle of a partisan redistricting war. We have the Court of John Roberts to thank.

I don’t care if he is angry. So am I.

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R.I.P. V.R.A.

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John Roberts, Chief Justice of the United States, has achieved his life goal. With the Court’s ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, he has killed the Voting Rights Act. Roberts made the destruction of the VRA of 1965 his lifelong crusade. His opposition to the Act dates back to his days as a law clerk for then Associate Justice William Rehnquist. Rehnquist notoriously wrote a memo in 1952 stating, “I think Plessy v. Ferguson was right and should be re-affirmed.” Plessy was the infamous “separate but equal” case institutionalizing racism in public schools. It was overturned by Brown v. Board of Education in 1954.

Roberts first wrote, “the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race” in 2007, Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1. Since then, the quote has become a defining slogan for his judicial philosophy on race, later appearing in other landmark rulings like Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (2023), which ended affirmative action in university admissions.

The record of the Roberts Court is clear:

  • Shelby County v. Holder (2013): Roberts authored the 5–4 majority opinion that effectively struck down Section 5, the “preclearance” requirement for states with a history of racial discrimination. He argued that the coverage formula was based on “decades-old data and eradicated practices” and that “our country has changed”.
  • Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee (2021): Roberts joined Justice Alito’s majority opinion that made it harder for plaintiffs to win Section 2 “vote-denial” cases. The ruling introduced “guideposts,” such as the “usual burdens of voting,” that limit the Act’s ability to challenge neutral-looking rules like ballot-collection bans.
  • Allen v. Milligan (2023): In a surprise to many legal observers, Roberts authored a 5–4 opinion upholding Section 2 to strike down Alabama’s congressional map for underrepresenting Black voters. He reaffirmed the Gingles precedent, stating that the law remains a vital tool against discriminatory redistricting.
  • Louisiana v. Callais (2026): Most recently, the Court ruled 6–3 that creating two majority-Black districts in Louisiana violated the Equal Protection Clause. Critics argue this decision, supported by Roberts, may effectively signal the end of Section 2’s power to protect minority voting strength against partisan gerrymandering.

Roberts’s position is hard to argue with on its face. The problem is that his view of the world does not match reality. Roberts let Justice Samuel Alito do the dirty work of writing the opinion in Louisiana v. Callais. Alito used Roberts’s rose-colored glasses.

Alito wrote that “things have changed dramatically” in the South and used that as a basis for concluding that the relevant protections of the Voting Rights Act are no longer needed in the way they once were. Quite a stretch for someone who claims to be an “originalist.” The framing echoes language Roberts had used in Shelby County to gut Section 5 of the VRA — Roberts had written that “voter turnout and registration rates now approach parity” and that “blatantly discriminatory evasions of federal decrees are rare.” Research shows that ruling led to hundreds of new laws which had the effect of restricting voting.

This is reminiscent of a metaphor used by the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, dissenting in Shelby County. Ginsburg called that decision equivalent to “throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.”

What is striking here is not this view of the current state of race relations in the country. It is that this view is being used as a justification for the Court’s action at all. The conservative majority is in full lawmaking mode here, a position it hypocritically denies it assumes. In fact, in the time since the 2022 Dobbs decision on abortion, the conservatives have been rewriting precedent with abandon and placing themselves in what is traditionally the role of the elected branches.

Justice Elena Kagan argued in her Louisiana v. Callais dissent that the majority opinion renders Section 2 of the VRA “all but a dead letter.” Kagan wrote that Section 2 had been “repeatedly, and overwhelmingly, reauthorized by the people’s representatives in Congress,” and that only Congress — not the Court — has the right to declare it no longer needed.

Alito insists the Court did not completely strike down section 2. But the Court significantly reworked the 40-year-old framework established in Thornburg v. Gingles, making three changes that will collectively make it much harder for voters of color to bring cases under Section 2 of the VRA. First, illustrative maps submitted by plaintiffs must meet all of a jurisdiction’s political objectives, including partisan goals. Second, evidence of racially polarized voting must control for partisan preferences. Third, in the “totality of circumstances” phase, plaintiffs must present strong evidence of present-day intentional racial discrimination — historical evidence of past discrimination carries much less weight.

I came of age during the turbulent 1960s with protests, sometimes violent, over the issues of Civil Rights, Woman’s Rights, and the war in Vietnam. Only one of three Americans alive today was alive then. Still, I am surprised to find so many students have failed to learn from the history of those days. Apparently, the conservatives on the Supreme Court have never learned or forgotten that history as well.

The Voting Rights Act was a major victory. It provided a mechanism to remedy the nearly total lack of Black Americans serving in Congress from the southern states, which had significant Black populations. Congress determined that was due to what were called Jim Crow laws, enacted in southern states, making it difficult for Blacks to vote in spite of the Fifteenth Amendment. Congress reauthorized the Act in 2006, extending it until 2031, finding it was still necessary. The vote in Congress was nearly unanimous.

The Court now substitutes its wishes for those of Congress, a pure exercise of judicial activism. In the immediate aftermath, Louisiana suspended its May 16 primary to allow the legislature to draw a new map, and Alabama filed an emergency motion seeking to stay a court order that had required it to maintain two majority-Black districts. A new era, call it Jim Crow 2.0, has arrived.

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