General Discussion

Last edited Sun Mar 15, 2026, 03:16 PM - Edit history (4)

which repealed restrictions on the consolidation of media ownership? Before that Act, we had thousands or more independently-owned news outlets.

Moreover, even if antitrust law were being appropriately enforced, it is insufficient to protect us from harms due to media consolidation because it would require proof that the lack of competition among outlets caused measurable economic losses to consumers, which can be nearly impossible to prove when the "product" is information rather than goods or services. Even if you could show that, e.g., subscription prices for news services were higher than they might otherwise have been, the difference is probably not big enough to compensate you for the real harms done, which are informational and moral – and how do you measure those in dollars?

(E.g., could you prove an exact amount of economic loss that you've personally suffered due to, say, the MSM's failure to adequately cover the arrest and conviction of four black activist leaders for "conspiring to sow political discord" – allegedly at the behest of Russia, even though the their supposedly illegal behavior consisted in nothing more than the same kinds of activism for black equity and reparations that they'd been fighting for for the previous 50 years? {see https://www.courthousenews.com/black-rights-activists-convicted-of-conspiracy-not-guilty-of-acting-as-russian-agents/ })

Imho, we need to restore the restrictions on media consolidation that we once enjoyed, AND we need a body of antitrust law of information, as well as the one we have for $.