Franklin Foer writes:

The fate of Warner Bros. Discovery is no longer a regulatory matter. It is a medieval tournament, in which the king invites rival bidders to compete for his approval. To acquire the media company, the aspirants—Paramount and Netflix—will have to offer a sacrifice: Whoever can damage CNN the most stands to walk away with the prize.

This is one of those moments in Donald Trump’s presidency when an event that would otherwise be recognized as a death knell for democracy somehow fails to elicit the outrage it deserves. Warner Bros. Discovery owns CNN, whose coverage Trump views as hostile to his administration. So he is abusing the government’s merger-approval power in order to insist that the next owner of the venerable outlet mold its journalism to his liking.

Such coercion isn’t just the product of Trump’s brazen indifference to procedural restraints; it’s possible because the underlying business of the media has become terrifyingly vulnerable to coercion. Recent history is a study in false promise. After the explosion of cable and the internet in the 1990s—technologies that promised radical decentralization—the media sector reconsolidated. Google and Meta devoured the advertising market that once sustained journalism: The United States now has just three newspapers that provide deep, authoritative national coverage; local outlets have closed by the thousands. Six television streaming services command nearly 90 percent of the audience—and, no matter which bidder Trump favors, those six stand to become five.

That tendency toward consolidation always posed a danger: As the number of competitors shrinks, an aspiring authoritarian can far more easily commandeer the system. But the specific architecture of modern media conglomerates creates a unique fragility. Many are burdened by debt; all are subject to government regulation. These companies are not just concentrated—they are compromised. Their weaknesses tempt them to submit to the undemocratic whims of the president.

Even if a small and shrinking fraction of the country watches cable news, Trump is a member of that cohort of aging, politically obsessed couch potatoes. And he is unmistakably fixated on how he is portrayed on those networks, especially CNN. That’s a fact that David Ellison, the CEO of Paramount, has exploited in his bid to acquire Warner Bros. According to The Wall Street Journal, Ellison conveyed to Trump that he would overhaul the network if the president allows him to buy it.

It wasn’t a hollow promise. Ellison—the son of Larry, the founder of the software giant Oracle and a Trump supporter—was already building a media empire that is more sympathetic to the president, or at least less hostile. After he bought CBS earlier this year, he installed new leadership to propel its news division rightward.

The early signs are ominous. Last week, Trump complained on Truth Social that 60 Minutes was treating him “far worse since the so-called ‘takeover’ than they have ever treated me before.” On Sunday, CBS suddenly pulled a 60 Minutes segment about Trump’s policy of deporting people to an infamous prison in El Salvador. The story, according to correspondence reviewed by The New York Times, had been fully vetted and was ready to air. Bari Weiss, the new head of the news division, said that she wanted producers to add context to the piece. Regardless of whether Ellison shares the president’s politics, he has an incentive to crush CBS’s independence and similarly renovate CNN, because the ultimate success of his conglomerate hinges on Trump blessing his bid for Warner Bros. [Continue reading…]