The Rightwing Media Machine Just Got Way More Dangerous

The right has been consolidating the media for three decades, and the left keeps sleeping through it.

After a monthslong saga, the Paramount merger was finally approved this week, clearing the way for two of Hollywood’s biggest studios to be jammed under one notoriously Trump-friendly roof. Warner Brothers-Discovery-Paramount is now “Skydance,” and we’re one step away from a “30 Rock” joke where every movie and TV show is just made by Palantir.

David Ellison now controls one of the biggest media empires in the world, which includes both CBS and CNN, two legacy film studios, and two major streaming platforms. It’s hard to articulate just how monstrous this deal is, both in terms of size and consequence. Thousands of jobs are on the chopping block. CNN’s independence is a huge question mark, for which my confidence is at an all time low given the cautionary tale that is CBS News.

The thing is, we saw this coming. Not just this merger, but this entire media landscape. The right wing’s media consolidation crusade has been going on for at least as long as I’ve been alive. It started in earnest in the ‘90s when Sinclair Broadcast Group started scooping up local news stations. It now controls about 40% of local affiliates in the country. You may remember them from such Orwellian moments as this one in 2018, when they made dozens of anchors recite the same script— ironically enough about fake news.

Rupert Murdoch then launched Fox News in 1996 with Roger Ailes at the helm, crafted specifically to serve as an antidote to the “liberal media.” The network was branded Fair and Balanced, not because Fox saw itself as “fair” or “balanced,” but expressly because the network would serve as a rightwing balance to the otherwise liberal media. It was always a rightwing partisan project.

Cut to: today. With this merger, the entire media space is concentrated in the hands of a select few tech oligarchs, all of whom you’ve seen whispering sweet nothings into Trump’s ear at some lunch or inauguration over the last two years. Ellison has CBS and CNN, Elon Musk has X, Mark Zuckerberg has his Meta empire, and Jeff Bezos let democracy die in broad daylight when he gutted the Washington Post.

The left has responded by not responding. It’s the same way we fell short in combatting rightwing gerrymandering, which began in earnest by the GOP in 2010 and continues to this very cycle, in which Republicans gerrymandered 12 seats in their favor. Democrats responded by redrawing the maps in all of *one* state, California (and winning a court case in Utah, adding one more blue seat). On the spectrum of being slow to respond, Democrats make “time between seasons of Severance” seem brief.

We have to get out of this paralysis. We have to fight back.

We have an opportunity to do it with independent media. It’s the last vestige of independence— free from the same rightwing influence that plagues the mainstream media, courthouses, statehouses, and the US Capitol.

For my part, I will continue to raise my voice and fight for a more progressive America— one where the rule of law matters, where elections are fair and voting is protected, where the fight to combat climate change is taken seriously, and where everyone has healthcare.

The Ellisons of the world are going to keep pouring billions into bulking up these giant conglomerates, and the mainstream media will continue to be compromised. But I will do my part to make sure that the one battleground that we don’t cede is the independent media ecosystem.