To the editor: Netflix’s decision to capitulate to unambiguous political and economic pressure by dropping its bid for Warner Bros. raises some startling practical questions about the future of independence in America’s powerful entertainment industry. Paramount Skydance, with its revised offer, outbid Netflix and won the broader media war (“Netflix bows out of Warner Bros. auction, Paramount to claim the prize,” Feb. 26).
Paramount Chairman David Ellison and his billionaire father, who has been cultivating his relationship with the president, have already taken concrete steps to influence news coverage with a rightward shift at CBS, which the company acquired last year. For instance, Paramount recently installed Bari Weiss as editor in chief of CBS News. Weiss swiftly lost the trust of “60 Minutes” viewers after pulling a segment that exposed the administration’s decision to deport individuals to, as CBS called it, “brutal and torturous” prison conditions at CECOT in El Salvador. The segment would eventually run, but not before intense public backlash.
Paramount’s revised offer will pave the way for it to control CNN if it survives scrutiny from federal regulators and antitrust laws. The consolidation of these media entities means Paramount would eventually own both CNN and CBS, allowing it to tilt news coverage to enhance its own media power. It’s not a stretch to imagine that, after resolving investigations from American and European regulators, CNN will look much more like Fox News or OAN, both of which clearly cater to a conservative agenda.
The Paramount bid leaves viewers with fewer options to find independent, balanced and credible fact-based reporting and, instead, potentially subjects them to more state TV at the expense of keeping the current administration and its enablers accountable for their decisions.
Autocrats around the world couldn’t be happier with America’s dysfunction.
Anthony Arnaud, Laguna Niguel
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To the editor: Can someone explain the sense of Paramount paying $110 billion for Warner Bros. when every studio continually moans that it doesn’t have the money to properly pay its writers, actors, directors and craftspeople?
