Reject the Paramount–Warner Bros. Discovery Merger Settlement

Attorney General Bonta's settlement with Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery is a capitulation, and I'm asking you to do everything in your power to block this merger from closing. Combining CBS, Paramount+, HBO, CNN, and multiple major studios into a single company — partially financed by sovereign wealth funds from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Abu Dhabi — is exactly the kind of media consolidation that antitrust law exists to prevent. A California judge already found this merger would likely violate antitrust laws. That finding should have been the end of it. The so-called editorial independence board is window dressing. Five journalists appointed by Paramount's own board of directors will not protect CBS News or CNN from a company whose CEO has cultivated close ties to the White House and whose largest backer is a longtime Trump ally. Connecticut AG William Tong was right to demand full divestiture of CNN and CBS News. That's the standard this settlement should have met. A free press cannot survive when this much media power is handed to the president's political allies. Fight this.