mythbusting the Paramount settlement en español

Folks, Paramount's new editorial "independence" board for CNN and CBS will be hand-picked by the Ellisons and will report... to the Ellisons

this sucks but la lucha sigue

The anniversary of Jamal Khashoggi's murder is Oct. 2.

But today is a loss, and that loss will be felt by the people who can least afford it.

This industry was once marked with strict rules so that a small handful of conglomerates couldn’t own everything. There’s no reason we cannot return to that reality. There’s no reason we can’t build on it.

This is not the end. The coalition that fought to block this illegal merger will fight to break up big media. There is legislation pending in Congress today that would retroactively break up corrupt billionaire mergers.

The people who work in the film and TV industry and the small businesses who support it will suffer as a result. And so will everyone who values dissent in our democracy.

Gavin Newsom caved to that pressure. So did Xavier Becerra. And eventually, so did Attorney General Rob Bonta, agreeing to a weak settlement that will be exceedingly difficult to enforce. People want champions who are not afraid of rich bullies. Newsom, Becerra, and Bonta did not meet that mark.

But the Ellison family does not care about the law. Instead, they loudly threatened to leave California if their merger did not go through immediately.

The AGs beat them again at the negotiating table, getting the conglomerate to agree to pause the merger until as late as next June.

This did not have to happen. Thanks to an extraordinary outpouring of grassroots anger against the merger, a coalition of 12 state attorneys general sued to block it. They beat Paramount in court, winning a court-ordered pause on the merger.

Layoffs will follow. People from L.A. to Atlanta will lose their jobs, small businesses will lose their contracts, your cable bill and movie ticket will be even more expensive. Dissent against money and power will be even harder to find.

Today, billionaires yet again bribed, censored, and bullied their way to the top. As a result, a billionaire media company closely allied with the president will soon own one of its closest rivals, including some of the nation’s critical news outlets. Saudi Arabia will co-own those outlets, too.

Here’s the truth: Americans across the political spectrum are fed up with corruption and with rich people calling the shots while everyone else struggles. Economic populism has real legs. Standing firm and enforcing the law isn’t just the right thing to do. It’s the politically smart thing too.

Unsubstantiated rumors suggest that Ellison’s ready to bounce on October 1. Is he really going to pull out of California 14 days before the court-mandated settlement conference? If so, that sure smacks of more bad faith.