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Conclusion

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Conclusion

Many Americans are experiencing mounting crises: unaffordability of daily necessities, climate change, increasingly authoritarian politics, disturbing cases of hate crimes and discrimination, stagnating culture, the threat of AI, renewed militarism and imperialism, and more. And yet, for many other Americans, these crises are barely noticeable. Some in our country are awash in a sea of polluted media and disinformation. Of the many escalating difficulties facing the country, we see the deterioration of attention to creative culture and mass communication as high priorities. These are realities that many Americans only experience as not liking what’s at the theater or what’s on TV anymore. Many are not aware of the scale of the problem—and that the problem is in the C-Suites. Decades of media mergers and acquisitions have left U.S. citizens with a narrow selection of places to get their news and culture, with most options owned by a narrowing group of corporate conglomerates. Media consolidation is blinding Americans to their own plight.

The Paramount Skydance merger with Warner Bros. Discovery would notch the extremely high level of consolidation up yet another level. As this document has shown, the harms of this merger are vast and multi-faceted. There would be detrimental effects on workers, consumer prices, the viability of movie theaters, sports culture, political discourse, diversity of viewpoint and content, access to history and culture, the gaming industry, the animation industry, and more. The media power of the billionaire class would be strengthened, its connection to authoritarian forces and Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds further cemented. The overarching story that this document tells is one of a single business transaction that would have a domino effect on many people’s lives and livelihoods. The overall threat is to American democracy itself.

We as U.S. citizens need to fight for our right to culture. This merger gives us clear villains (Larry and David Ellison), clear problems (layoffs, consolidation, censorship, less creativity, higher prices), and a clear goal (block the merger). The current Federal Communications Commission and Department of Justice are compromised, staffed as they are by Trump appointees who serve his donors. Lawyers at the DOJ were actually poised to recommend a merger review, but DOJ leaders cleared the deal for spurious reasons. However, there are state-level options, as the successful Live Nation antitrust case has shown. A coalition of states could organize and sue Paramount Skydance over this merger, but they need broad support and to see that the public cares about this issue. There are a multitude of ways individuals can accomplish this:

As people demonstrate their support to block the merger, we urge politicians, journalists, and citizens to connect the plutocratic plunder of our media system to the plutocratic plunder of our health care, education, climate, politics, energy, real estate, immigration, and failing social system. Our media ecosystem likely can’t survive further consolidation. And we believe that with more information, the public can be persuaded: we all care about stories and we all rely on good information systems. This merger case and its appeals process could be drawn out over many months, even years, but the public interest can win out if together we persevere.

This tactical goal can be but one component of a broader, long-term strategy of transforming our media system at many different levels to work for the American people, from the personal to the organizational to the political. Here are some things that American citizens can do to protect their rights and their access to media: 

  • Pay for news, especially investigative journalism that confronts corruption. 
  • Watch and pay for independent film and television. 
  • Limit support of corporate and derivative media. 
  • Give financial and social support to artisans, not hedge funds. 
  • Support organizations like GLAAD, NAACP, FAIR, Free Press, Electronic Frontier Foundation, and MediaJustice. 
  • Don’t let an algorithm decide what you read, watch, or listen to. Make your own decisions about what culture you surround yourself with. Read reviews by trusted critics. Follow organizations that celebrate meaningful art. Chat with your friends about what you’ve seen or heard. Culture is not just about consumption; it is about community and shared meaning-making.

When the people win this defensive maneuver and stop the takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery, we can look beyond this fight to consider a renewed emphasis on antitrust enforcement. Don’t just limit the finance-fueled mergers and acquisitions that have led to monopolization throughout the economy, but unwind previous mergers and break up the biggest companies. Break up Netflix. Break up Disney. Break up every single predatory Big Tech company using film, television, music, and news as another way to get and sell our data. Carve out new regulatory rules that prevent any company from ever gaining too big a market share of any cultural sector. 

At the same time, we need to continue beating the drum of public media for the public interest. Renew funding for PBS and NPR. Expand public funding for news and media, especially in underserved areas. Build federally-backed and locally-governed public media centers—analogous to a post office—that also provide municipal broadband and access to reliable media. Expand “legal deposit” requirements to the Library of Congress to include DRM-free, interlibrary-loanable copies of all film and television, removing clauses where studios can pay small fees in lieu of allowing broad access for fair use. 

Stories and information are too important to leave to a predatory for-profit marketplace, motivated by accumulation for the few. Shared culture belongs to the many. Let’s save it and protect it.

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