Twelve state attorneys general — all Democrats — filed a federal antitrust lawsuit on July 13 to block the roughly $110 billion merger between Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery. CBS covered it. ABC and NBC did not air a single second.
A lawsuit that could reshape who owns American media, and two of the three broadcast networks decided it wasn't news.
The suit was filed in California's Northern District. The plaintiff states include Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, and Washington. California Attorney General Rob Bonta framed the stakes in sweeping terms: "The unlawful merger of these two entertainment behemoths would lead to higher prices, lower quality, and less content for film and television, harming movie theaters, basic cable distributors, and ultimately, audiences on every sofa and movie theater seat in the U.S."
NewsBusters documented the omission from Monday's broadcasts. CBS, whose parent company Paramount is directly involved in the deal, managed to cover it. Tony Dokoupil, anchoring the CBS Evening News, disclosed the connection up front: "Some news tonight concerning Paramount Skydance, the parent company of CBS News. 12 states filed an antitrust suit today aiming to block the roughly $110 billion merger between Paramount Skydance and Warner Brothers Discovery."
That's CBS covering a lawsuit against its own parent company. ABC and NBC have no such conflict — and they still couldn't be bothered.
The merger has already cleared the U.S. Department of Justice and international regulators. The companies behind it argue it would increase jobs and expand consumer choice. The Democratic attorneys general disagree, claiming it would create a monopoly. Reasonable people can debate the antitrust merits.
What's harder to debate is the editorial decision at ABC and NBC. This isn't some obscure regulatory filing. It's a $110 billion deal involving two of the largest media companies on the planet, challenged by a dozen state governments. The outcome will determine ownership structures across broadcast television, cable news, and streaming. It is, by any standard, a major story.
The context makes the silence more interesting. Media commentator Oliver Darcy has warned that "CNN staffers have every reason to be worried" about the merger and predicted what he called "MAGA-fication" of the network. That framing — that a corporate merger might shift editorial direction — has been a running theme in left-leaning media criticism. And yet when Democratic officials take legal action to stop it, two networks with every reason to cover the story simply don't.
CBS, the network with the most obvious reason to downplay it, reported it straight. ABC and NBC, with no corporate skin in the game, went dark.
A dozen Democratic attorneys general filed a federal lawsuit to determine who gets to own a major American news network. The networks that had nothing to lose by covering it said nothing. The one that had everything to lose covered it anyway.
That tells you more about editorial independence than any merger ever could.