In a stark illustration of the precarious state of American media under political pressure, the potential acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery has transformed into a contest where damaging CNN appears to be the price of entry. President Donald Trump, viewing CNN’s coverage as hostile, is leveraging the government’s merger-approval power to coerce aspiring buyers—Paramount and Netflix—into reshaping the network’s journalism to his liking. This brazen coercion is enabled not just by Trump’s disregard for procedural norms but by the media industry’s profound structural vulnerabilities. Decades of consolidation, driven by the rise of streaming and the advertising dominance of tech giants like Google and Meta, have left the sector with fewer, more indebted players whose survival often hinges on regulatory favor. This concentration creates a unique fragility, making conglomerates susceptible to authoritarian pressure as they scramble for growth in stagnant or hyper-competitive markets.
The bidding war exemplifies this dynamic. David Ellison, CEO of Paramount and son of Trump supporter Larry Ellison, has reportedly assured the president he would overhaul CNN if allowed to acquire Warner Bros. This follows a pattern: after buying CBS earlier this year, Ellison installed new leadership that pushed its news division rightward, evidenced by the sudden shelving of a vetted *60 Minutes* segment critical of Trump’s deportation policy. Such actions reveal a media landscape where corporate independence is sacrificed for regulatory approval. Unlike the insulated, family-controlled monopolies of the past—such as Katharine Graham’s Washington Post, which could defy Richard Nixon—today’s conglomerates are financially strained and exist in a state of dependency. Their path to viability is through consolidation, making them uniquely reliant on a state whose regulatory agencies, like the FCC and FTC, have been transformed into extensions of presidential will.
The consequences extend far beyond a single network. As media shrinks, Trump’s coercion yields an outsized return. Neutralizing a major outlet like CNN or influencing *The Washington Post* doesn’t just silence one voice; it dismantles a pillar of the national news infrastructure. The greater risk is that conglomerates, seeing journalism as a high-risk, low-return endeavor, may abandon it entirely—as seen with Comcast spinning off MSNBC and Warner Bros.’ own plans to isolate CNN. This crisis of information is a crisis for democracy, leaving citizens starved of facts and vulnerable to manipulation. If Trump succeeds in remaking CNN and CBS, he will likely target remaining skeptical outlets, methodically weakening independent journalism until the media landscape fully submits to political pressure, following an authoritarian playbook akin to Viktor Orbán’s in Hungary.
Ez a cikk a Neural News AI (V1) verziójával készült.
Forrás: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/12/trump-paramount-netflix-cnn-cbs/685349/.