After Censoring CBS, Trump Will Go For CNN

Amended transcript of short video from Old Goats with Jonathan Alter:

On the day after Trump’s efforts to censor Stephen Colbert blew up in his face, I have fresh reporting on why Netflix is not likely to be successful in taking over Warner Bros. Discovery, which opens the door to Paramount-SkyDance owning Warner. That would mean that Trump, Bari Weiss, and company would control not just CBS News but CNN, HBO, and other properties, and Trump would increase his stranglehold over old media.

So let’s first talk about the cowardice of CBS executives. They bent the knee in advance when they were told by wannabe censor Brendan Carr, the chair of the FCC, there would be new rules for shows that require equal time for opposing candidates. (Carr would hypocritically exempt right-wing talk radio.) Trump and Carr did this out of worry that James Talarico is going to win in Texas, costing Republicans control of the U.S. Senate. So they wanted to do anything they could to prevent Talarico from getting more national attention on Colbert, The View, and elsewhere.

Trump used cowardly lackeys like CBS President George Cheeks to do his bidding and censor Colbert. He didn’t even have to ask. Knowing the merger was pending, Cheeks and the lawyers just obeyed in advance, then told Colbert to say nothing about it on the air.

But what happened was encouraging. Colbert correctly told his viewers to go to YouTube.

They did, and now many millions more have seen the Talarico interview there. So these efforts to censor the media don’t always work. But when Trump and his stooges have corporate control, it does give them much greater ability to shape what we see and hear.

So here’s what’s going to happen now: Netflix has agreed, under pressure, to let Paramount SkyDance have several days of negotiations with Warner Discovery, whose board wanted to go with Netflix. But in the next few days David Ellison and Larry Ellison will sweeten the bid. And then, from what I’ve heard from very good sources, the Justice Department will announce what Republican senators have already hinted at, which is that they will block a merger with Netflix on antitrust grounds. International regulators may say the same, ending Netflix’s bid.

That would be good: either of these mergers would be terrible for the creative community, workers and the public. But the demise of the Netflix deal would make it easier for the Ellisons and Paramount to take over Warner Discovery, which would then give Bari Weiss and company control not just of CBS News, but of CNN and HBO (Bill Maher and John Oliver would have to go elsewhere). Then you would have a situation where CBS, CNN, and Fox, not to mention TikTok, would all be under the control of Donald Trump.

Fortunately, there’s what’s called a public comment period before mergers are approved. And in the past, judges have sometimes used those public comments to block mergers. These outside voices can be very influential in shaping the outcome. For instance, Stephen King spoke up against the Random House–Simon & Schuster merger, and it was blocked.

So there is hope for blocking a Paramount–Warner merger. We need to be prepared for the likelihood that the Justice Department and the FCC will try to grease the skids for it. That means we must do everything we can to block that merger—call out Trump, Carr, and Pam Bondi on this—so that Trump does not get Putin or Orbán-like control over legacy media in the United States.

So please, educate yourself on this issue and join what I hope is a loud public outcry.

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