My students and I were talking this morning about press freedoms in the U.S. and in other Western democracies. How, I asked, could countries like Britain, Canada, Germany and France ensure such freedoms in the absence of something like the First Amendment?
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The answer is that they can’t, at least not as comprehensively as we do. Libel protections and the right to publish information about criminal trials, government secrets and the like are in fact more robust here than they are in other countries. Yet according to the Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders, the U.S. ranks just 64th, behind Botswana but ahead of Panama. Norway is No. 1.
How can this be? A large part of the explanation came Monday, when the last remaining legal opposition to Paramount’s $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery melted away, transforming two behemoths into one super-behemoth. Nearly all of this corrupt (as in the sense of rotting flesh, not whether it’s legal) transaction involves entertainment properties, which is where the money is. But what many of us really care about is that CNN is moving under the same corporate umbrella as CBS News.