Rodney Benson
@rodneybenson.bsky.social
professor NYU Media, Culture, & Comm, & Sociology; new book How Media Ownership Matters (Oxford, April '25), https://global.oup.com/academic/product/how-media-ownership-matters-9780199931316?lang=en&cc=us
Check this out @lisafung.bsky.social
Rodney Benson@rodneybenson.bsky.social · 3w agoThank you @adewaard.bsky.social & Shawna Kidman for your leadership of this important report on the economic, cultural, & civic costs of this merger. I joined them to write the devastating section on how this merger would distort & lower the quality of the news relied upon by millions of Americans.
Thank you @adewaard.bsky.social & Shawna Kidman for your leadership of this important report on the economic, cultural, & civic costs of this merger. I joined them to write the devastating section on how this merger would distort & lower the quality of the news relied upon by millions of Americans.
Andrew deWaard@adewaard.bsky.social · 4w agoAt MACRO Lab, we have an extensive new report: "The Costs of Consolidation: Arguments and Evidence for Blocking the Paramount-Warner Bros. Merger." We argue that the combined company will struggle to serve consumers or act in the public interest: macrolab.ucsd.edu/paramount-warner-merger
California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and 11 other Democratic state attorneys general file lawsuit to block Paramount Skydance’s proposed $111-billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery Via @megjames.bsky.social www.latimes.com/entertainmen...
States sue to block Paramount's $111-billion Warner Bros. takeover
California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and 11 other state attorneys general expressed concern that the industry-reshaping deal could spell doom for movie theaters.
latimes.com
California AG Rob Bonta is holding a press conference now about his lawsuit challenging Paramount-WBD. The twelve states bringing the suit say the combination is the "largest in Hollywood history" and just plain too big
Official line is let each instructor decide. But overtime that undermines professors who don’t allow AI - makes them look unfairly ‘tough’. My solution not necessarily less demanding is to move everything into the class - debates, oral exams, in-class writing… the take-home assignment is a farce!
Josh Shepperd@joshshepperd.bsky.social · 2mo agoI hate to say it, but the colleagues positioning themselves to be pro AI in teaching and curriculum, are probably also positioning themselves to be administrators, and probably aren’t thinking about or don’t care how it will affect teaching, learning, or the careers of those around them.
As long as the Ellisons need the Trump admin. to approve the WB-Paramount merger, don't expect them to care about what journalists think, or even about lost ratings and profits. Their indifference to the staff revolt at '60 Minutes', alas, continues to confirm what I wrote for Contexts.
Contexts Magazine@contexts.org · 3mo agoRodney Benson shares "One Thing I Know" about the ownership forms that constrain journalistic independence. Read it in Contexts! ➡️https://journals.sagepub.com/loi/ctx
@baykurt.bsky.social and I explore what is going on in Turkey in our recent post: open.substack.com/pub/itallhap...
Have We Seen This Before?
A Judicial Coup Against Turkey's Main Opposition Party
open.substack.com
Interviewed again about the future of public media by Columbia Journalism Review. They made my quote the title of the piece.
Three Colorado stations signed on to a lawsuit that challenged the Trump administration’s defunding of NPR and PBS. It’s too late to recover lost funds, but their court victory sets an important prece...
Three Colorado stations signed on to a lawsuit that challenged the Trump administration’s defunding of NPR and PBS. It’s too late to recover lost funds, but their court victory sets an important prece...
cjr.org
It was the closing show, so you can no longer see it, but the Ulysses stage adaptation by Elevator Repair Service at the Public Theatre was one of the most thrilling works of theatre I’ve seen in a long, long time.
My heart goes out to the CNN journalists. But what can be done to support them beyond expressions of moral support? How can journalists at other news outlets and diverse publics provide concrete support? What forms of collective action can we imagine and implement?
Oliver Darcy@oliverdarcy.bsky.social · 5mo agoSuffice to say, the mood inside CNN is not good tonight. “We are doomed," one staffer texted me. “The panic at CNN right now is off the charts,” an insider added. Details in @status.news: www.status.news/p/cnn-david-...
Kudos to you @micahloewinger.bsky.social & to the always insightful @victorpickard.bsky.social for this super-informative dialogue on US media in historical & global context. And it's not just about how we got here, it's also about what we need to do next to keep journalism's civic mission alive.
Micah Loewinger@micahloewinger.bsky.social · 5mo agoIf you're looking for much broader context on how we got here, definitely check out my recent interview with @victorpickard.bsky.social about capitalistic, oligarchical, and authoritarian capture of the press:
Yes! @jayrosen.bsky.social - Bezos should follow the example of fellow billionaire Xavier Niel, previous sole owner of Le Monde, who moved his capital into an independent endowment. Check out: www.thewrap.com/le-monde-acq...
Le Monde Acquired by Press Protection Endowment Fund
The fund “has a general interest mission to defend freedom of opinion and expression in France,” and protect editorial independence
thewrap.com
Jay Rosen@jayrosen.bsky.social · 6mo agoFrom @status.news "If Bezos really believes in the mission of the newspaper, it’s time for him to end his ownership of The Post."
The challenge for a new Wash Post (if Bezos could be convinced to part w/ it) or for a startup competing w/the Post is to combine independence w/ scale. That's where the Phil Inquirer (Lenfest Institute) or Le Monde (w/ an endowment owner) provide the best models See www.thewrap.com/le-monde-acq...
Le Monde Acquired by Press Protection Endowment Fund
The fund “has a general interest mission to defend freedom of opinion and expression in France,” and protect editorial independence
thewrap.com
Exactly! This is the threat of "economic instrumentalism" that I and my colleagues describe in our book How Media Ownership Matters: use of a media outlet to promote or protect an owner's business interests. It's why we need trust or endowment ownership like at The Guardian, Le Monde, Phil. Inquirer
Alan Rusbridger@arusbridger.bsky.social · 6mo agoBezos could retrieve something from the disaster of his ownership of the @washingtonpost.com by emulating the Scott family in 1932. Give the paper away and endow it with, say, $1.5 bn. And have an independent trust run it in the public interest.
'In his Post ownership early years, Bezos was seen as a steward of quality journalism. But he has carefully shifted his public tone in the Trump era. This shift is the fundamental risk of news outlets being bought by individuals w/ business interests outside of news.' www.axios.com/2026/02/05/w...
Washington Post cuts reignite concerns over Bezos ownership
The Post's financial struggles predate Lewis' tenure, but have been compounded by a series of unforced errors over the past two years.
axios.com
Thank you @froomkin.bsky.social for this much needed parsing of which news organizations are speaking truth to power and which are buckling, under the phony pretense of both-sideism
Dan Froomkin/Press Watch/Heads Up News@froomkin.bsky.social · 6mo agoIt’s been incredibly sad to see the news industry struggle so publicly with whether and how to tell the truth about the wanton, brutal killing of Alex Pretti--someone who did absolutely nothing wrong--at the hands of the masked federal agents terrorizing his city. presswatchers.org/2026/01/mome...
I was interviewed at CJR about the closure of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Along with the excellent @rodneybenson.bsky.social.
What the dissolution of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting means.
The parent organization of NPR and PBS, already defunded, is shutting down—and claims that’s for the best. But there are dangers ahead.
cjr.org
Glad to see our findings in How Media Ownership Matters confirmed and extended - will read this closely ! global.oup.com/academic/pro...
global.oup.com
Tales Tomaz@talestomaz.bsky.social · 11mo agoKey insight: Concentration is not inherently detrimental. Institutional logic of ownership matters: * Public/foundation ownership → pluralism & press freedom * Private/family ownership → risks of instrumentalization @rodneybenson.bsky.social's works have been an inspiration, of course
Looks fascinating and definitely worth checking out !
Tales Tomaz@talestomaz.bsky.social · 11mo agoHow should we measure media power and concentration in hybrid media systems? Mariia Aleksevych and I just published a new open-access article in Media and Communication @cogitatiomac.bsky.social with a methodological proposal: www.cogitatiopress.com/mediaandcomm...
“This is a nut that no one else in the country has cracked — how to translate what nonprofit newsrooms are doing for commercial TV.” www.niemanlab.org/2025/08/can-...
Can nonprofit news mix with local TV? A Pennsylvania partnership aims to find out
“This is a nut that no one else in the country has cracked — how to translate what nonprofit newsrooms are doing for commercial TV.”
niemanlab.org
I enjoyed talking to UCLA's Luskin Center for History and Policy podcast "Then and Now" about the origins and possible future of public media. Thanks to Ben Zdencanovic.
Defunding Big Bird: The Politics and History of Public Broadcasting. A Conversation with Josh Shepperd. - Then & Now
In this episode of then & now, guest host Dr. Ben Zdencanovic welcomes Professor Josh Shepperd, Associate Professor of Media Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder and Director of the Libra...
buzzsprout.com
As I told the reporter, KQED's announced [layoffs] make "it clear that no one in public media is safe. The threat to public media funding affects even the largest & strongest outlets.” Excellent article w/additional comments from @victorpickard.bsky.social & Nik Usher, www.kqed.org/news/1204866...
‘No One in Public Media Is Safe’: KQED Layoffs Underscore Peril of Federal Defunding | KQED
The Bay Area station is cutting 15% of its staff and bracing for the loss of federal support — a sign, experts say, of deeper problems in U.S. public media’s fragile funding model.
kqed.org
So much for multi-year funding, staggered terms for CPB board members, an organizational home as an independent nonprofit. These carefully designed protections could not stop a power-grabbing President and a sycophantic Congress. Not a great day for US democracy. www.cnn.com/2025/07/17/m...
Trump’s victory over PBS and NPR ‘bias’ will be ‘devastating’ for rural areas, station leaders say | CNN Business
Public TV stations will be “forced to make hard decisions in the weeks and months ahead,” PBS CEO Paula Kerger said Thursday, after the Senate approved a bill canceling all the federal funding for the...
cnn.com
Unfortunately, part of my prediction is already coming true: "In a future company controlled by Skydance, it's easy to imagine that Stewart's and Colbert's shows could be short-lived." www.newsweek.com/jon-stewart-...
Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert face uncertain futures
"They have to have what it takes to succeed independently, but not if it relies on old structures," one expert told Newsweek.
newsweek.com
The Senate is on the verge of stripping more than a billion dollars from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which could decimate local news stations. Defenders of public media have mobilized to stop the bill, which strips more than $1.1 billion from the CPB, which includes cuts to NPR and PBS.
Public Media Defenders Mobilize as Senate GOP Set to Gut Over $1B in Funding
This is a coordinated, authoritarian attempt to silence dissent and dismantle the public good,” said Our Revolution.
truthout.org
Government-backed institutions sometimes stand up more strongly to authoritarianism than their commercial counterparts.
Can Public Media Survive Trump?
Government-backed institutions sometimes stand up more strongly to authoritarianism than their commercial counterparts.
newyorker.com
As GOP congressional leaders are vowing to move full steam ahead to approve Trump's request to eliminate federal funding for public media for the next two years, a group of 29 Senate Democrats are warning the broadcast outlets should be "protected, not decimated."
Partisan battle lines form over Trump's plan to defund NPR & PBS
Senate Democrats warn Trump plan to wipe out public broadcasting funding will shut down stations, eliminate essential services. But House GOP scheduled to vote to clawback $1.1 billion next week.
n.pr
Our new book measured partisan slant in 21 US news outlets. NPR had a 1.0 index score (perfectly balanced), compared to Fox (1.6, imbalanced for the right) and WashPost (1.4, for the left). PBS was in the center of our sample (1.2). We find US public media are less “biased” than other media.
global.oup.com
The Associated Press@apnews.com · last yr.President Donald Trump has signed an executive order aiming to slash public subsidies to PBS and NPR as he alleged “bias” in the broadcasters’ reporting.
