The suspension and restoration of The Jimmy Kimmel Show has starkly revealed how media giants have become political actors with the ability to “gerrymander” the airwaves. But Ali Velshi sees how this incident highlights the power of the people, and how collective resistance can check authoritarianism when our institutions falter. This week he brings us a history of media consolidation and its consequences.
Two decades ago, our government dismantled New Deal protections against media consolidation in the 1996 Telecommunications Act. In 1983, fifty companies controlled 90 percent of America’s media. Today, just five companies control 90 percent.
This handful of media organizations, acting at the behest of Trump and his minions in the FCC, tried to tell Americans that they are in charge of what we get to say, about who, and how. Americans, as it happened, were not having it. Boycotts, protests, and subscription cancellations resulted in a $4 billion loss in value for Disney, the parent company of ABC, which suspended Kimmel’s show “indefinitely” due to comments he made regarding MAGA reactions to Charlie Kirk’s killing.
After one week, Kimmel was put back on the air. Ordinary citizens employed “the tools that break authoritarian power.”
“We’re being called up on in this moment to fight to defend our democracy,” Velshi says. “But it’s hard sometimes to fight for an ideal when they’re just trying to make ends meet.” When 10 percent of the country owns 60 percent of the wealth, it’s apparent that our system is broken, and has been for some time. Our elected officials must take on the special interests that are destroying our democracy, be they enormous media conglomerates, tech monopolies, or the politicians who are using these organizations to usurp democracy.
LISTEN: VELSHI ON THE TOOLS THAT BREAK AUTHORITARIAN POWER
WATCH: VELSHI UNDERSCORES THE COSTS OF MEDIA CONSOLIDATION
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