Gavin Newsom Makes An Ass Of Himself On Antitrust, Paramount Merger

from the what-the-hell-are-you-doing,-dumbass dept

It’s hard to not have noticed that a key enabler of U.S. authoritarianism was our consolidated corporate media, which (with scattered exception) was more than happy to throw the entirety of journalistic integrity in the toilet for a chance to please a mad, idiot king. In large part because our press is increasingly owned by a handful of rich, white, old, right wing men keen on tax cuts and deregulation.

It’s very hard to also ignore that if we’re going to avoid more Donald Trumps, the country is in desperate need of media reform. Greater antitrust enforcement, the restoration of media consolidation limits, media ownership diversity requirements, improved media literacy standards (see: Finland), the restoration of U.S. public media, a refusal to amplify or validate the trolling of racist opportunists, and creative new funding models for real journalism are all essential.

Unfortunately Democrats and Republicans alike pay a lot of empty lip service to this sort of stuff, before immediately doing whatever makes our biggest corporations happy.

Case in point: California Governor Gavin Newsom for some reason thought it would be a good idea to try and quietly pressure California (and 11 other states) to drop their antitrust lawsuit against Paramount and David Ellison’s $111 billion merger with Warner Brothers.

Why? According to the Wall Street Journal (non-paywalled archive link) Newsom is trying to argue that blocking the unpopular deal will somehow harm California employment:

“In recent weeks, Newsom has told people involved in the matter that if the deal is blocked as a result of the suit, state employment would suffer, the people said. Newsom’s office has encouraged Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office, which has independent authority to file such suits, to find a resolution out of court, the people said.”

That’s simply not a fact-based claim. There are 100 years of very hard evidence showing that media consolidation repeatedly results in massive layoffs and higher prices for consumers. It’s simply not a debate. Warner Brothers, in particular, has a quarter century of hard evidence showing that every deal the company has been involved with ends in mass layoffs, higher prices, and shittier overall product.

We literally just went through this very thing with the AT&T/Discovery/DirecTV/Warner Bros mergers, which resulted in 50,000 people losing their jobs (this stark human tally is, curiously, memory holed when it comes to most corporate press coverage of the latest round of mergers).

California and eleven other states filed an antitrust lawsuit to block Paramount’s latest merger last month, correctly pointing out that the high debt load of the deal will result in significantly more layoffs for an already reeling U.S. entertainment industry. The courts have agreed to delays, which has justifiably worried Paramount given looming ticking fees ($7 million daily paid to investors starting in October) and Ellison’s/Oracle’s precarious financial footing on AI.

So the company is applying pressure wherever they can, and has found a helpful ear in folks like Gavin Newsom, Ari Emanuel, and James Cameron. The fact that Newsom is doing this behind closed doors and refuses to own the position or publicly comment to the press indicates he knows just how unpopular it is.

Newsom has no direct authority to pressure the AG on the deal, but it does shine a light on the kind of media policies you can expect under a Gavin Newsom presidency. Newsom has already found himself under fire for repeatedly hosting assorted white supremacists and right wing propagandists on his podcast, demonstrating a lack of modern media understanding and a tendency toward rank opportunism.

Newsom isn’t alone in being terrible when it comes to U.S. media policy. Democrats have historically spent the last quarter century tripping over their own asses when it comes to meaningful media reform policies, and the impact has not been subtle.

As a result, Republicans increasingly dominate everything from AM radio and local broadcast news, to Twitter and whatever’s left of cable news. Larry Ellison actively supports fascism; and he’s very clearly hoovering up outlets like CBS and CNN with an eye on making already saggy U.S. journalism much worse. Placating Larry Ellison doesn’t create jobs; it creates more fascism.

There is no bridging with or debating fascism. There’s no conversation to be had with it. It’s something that’s either destroyed or left to metastasize. A cornerstone of right wing U.S. authoritarianism has been extremely racist propaganda seeded across a feckless consolidated corporate media. Presidential hopefuls keen on dislodging fascism from the body politic — and avoiding a repeat with a younger, smarter version of Trump — shouldn’t be making the problem worse.

Filed Under: antitrust, competition, disinformation, gavin newsom, jobs, journalism, larry ellison, media consolidation, mergers, propaganda, rob bonta

Companies: paramount, warner bros.