Share-Owning Journalism Orgs Press Paramount For Company Docs On Corrupt Trump Merger Dealings

from the do-not-pass-go,-do-not-collect-$200 dept

More than 4,000 Hollywood insiders recently signed a letter blasting Paramount’s planned $111 billion merger with Warner Brothers, noting that the massive consolidation will be very historically harmful to labor, consumers, and creatives. That’s a very correct observation, especially as it relates to Warner Brothers, which has never been involved in a merger that didn’t result in mass layoffs, higher prices for everyone, and a significantly shittier overall product.

Now a coalition of press groups, including Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) and Reporters Without Borders, are pressing Paramount regarding “potentially corrupt acquisitions and deals” they argue could undermine shareholder value by degrading the (already sagging) quality of journalism at CBS News and CNN, while “relinquishing editorial control of major news outlets to the Trump administration.”

In a letter sent to former Trump DOJ “antitrust enforcer” (using that term ironically) turned Paramount top lawyer Makan Delrahim, the groups highlight all the dodgy bullshit that we’ve well-covered over the last year, whether it’s CBS paying the president a $16 million bribe to gain merger approval, CBS agreeing to install an “ombudsman” to ensure the network is consistently kissing the president’s ass, or Paramount billionaire owner Larry Ellison privately meeting with his friend Trump to promise he’d fire certain CNN anchors if the government allowed him to buy Warner Brothers.

The journalism groups make the point that the Ellison family effort to turn CBS into a Trump and Netanyahu-friendly agitprop machine has been disastrous for the company’s share price. And because both organizations are technically shareholders, they’re demanding deeper access to the Paramount books to see what other dodgy bullshit may not have been revealed yet:

“Since Paramount Skydance announced its most consequential Trump-friendly changes at CBS News in October — acquiring The Free Press and appointing Bari Weiss as editor-in-chief — the company’s market capitalization has decreased by 40%, wiping out more than $8 billion in shareholder value. Ratings for key programs, like “CBS Evening News with Tony Dokoupil,” have also dropped precipitously. Freedom of the Press Foundation and Reporters Without Borders, which are both shareholders in Paramount Skydance Corp., are entitled to inspect the company’s books and records related to these developments under Section 220 of the Delaware General Corporation Law.”

They’ve given Paramount five days to respond to their request for more documents and data related to any promises Paramount may have made the Trump administration. I’m not convinced the gambit will go anywhere, but it’s nice to see these kinds of groups (historically absent from many of these fights) suddenly paying closer attention to media consolidation.

Larry Ellison’s interests here are two-fold. He wanted to gift his nepobaby son David with two major Hollywood studios so David can pretend he’s a very big boy doing very serious things. But he’s also keen on dismantling what’s left of journalism at places like CBS News and CNN (already reeling from years of corporate cowardice) turning them into right-wing friendly agitprop mills that are even more friendly to his favorite autocrats (Trump and Netanyahu).

You’ll recall Bari Weiss sold herself to Paramount as an expert who could modernize CBS News through virality and mass audience appeal (despite having no actual experience in journalism). But Weiss, who got her start at the helm of a strange contrarian troll blog, has the instincts and ideas of a 90 year old man, and clearly isn’t capable of generating watchable propaganda in any ratings-grabbing way that actually appeals to anyone (even MAGA folks, who already have no limit of agitprop options).

The Trump administration will certainly rubber stamp the deal. Paramount will likely keep this effort locked up in the courts indefinitely. And the Democrats’ demand for the FCC to investigate the dodgy Chinese and Saudi financing propping up the deal isn’t likely to go anywhere. That leaves a collaborative looming lawsuit by state AGs as the most likely path toward ensuring this deal never gets off the ground.

But even if the deal gets approved, this giant company’s long-term survival is far from guaranteed. Especially given the shaky state of Hollywood, the steady enshittification of streaming, and the fact that there’s very little evidence that the any of the Paramount folks are competent.

There’s a very high likelihood that the combination of Paramount’s massive debt load from both the CBS and Warner deals– and fleeing audience (either bored by bad product or disgusted by the companies’ Trump allegiances) — combines with Larry Ellison’s over-extension on AI to result in some very precarious financial footing.

These major media deals always go terribly for consumers and labor, but execs often benefit from tax breaks, temporary stock boosts, and compensation in no way dictated by competency (see: CEO David Zaslav). But this series of deals is so massive and problematic, it could generate some very significant pain for the extraction class, and make all past merger disasters seem adorable by comparison.

Filed Under: consolidation, corruption, david ellison, journalism, makan delrahim, media, merger, press

Companies: freedom of the press foundation, paramount, reporters without borders, warner bros. discovery