Media Bits and Bytes — July 21, 2026
- The Biggest Media Grab Ever
- Networks vs Trump
- AI Bubble and Market Crash
- Flock No
- The Left Needs to Get Comms Right
- David vs Tech Goliaths
- Pushing AI Out of Schools
- Sadistic Online Exploitation of Vulnerable Children
- Cockroach! From a Post to a Party
- The Story of FAIR
Twelve states sued to block Paramount’s takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery, arguing that the $81 billion merger would “extinguish competition” in Hollywood and lead to fewer choices for consumers across the U.S. A Paramount-Warner combo would bring together two of Hollywood’s last five legacy studios. It would also mean putting Warner’s HBO Max and even CNN under the same roof.
Networks vs Trump
By Brian Stelter, CNN
Some major TV networks showed President Donald Trump’s prime-time address live while others pointedly did not — a divide that highlighted Trump’s long record of lying and renewed discussion about the news media’s responsibilities. And Trump made network decision-making a talking point in his speech.
AI Bubble and Market Crash
Riding the Bubble By Cory Doctorow, Red Pepper
Propping Up the Market By Grace Blakeley
Equity Sale and Valuation Surge By C.P. Chandrasekhar and Jayati Ghosh, IDEAS
Waiting For the Crash By Frédéric Lordon, New Left Review
By Brett Wilkins, Common Dreams
Resistance is mounting across the United States against the increasing use of surveillance tech company Flock Safety’s cameras, with a growing number of cities canceling contracts as the artificial intelligence-powered license plate readers are quietly being installed in thousands of locations nationwide.
The Left Needs to Get Comms Right
By Jiggy Geronimo
Words are one fraction of a narrative, an important (but small) fraction. Narrative is built from much more: images, ideas, repetition, emotion, and — above all — who says it, how it makes people feel, and how many people see it. We have focused exclusively on words at the expense of all of the other components of narrative.
By Jenny Kleeman, The Guardian
When Mark Lanier and his young client Kaley faced the tech giants in an LA courtroom earlier this year, it seemed a bigger battle than David v Goliath. But they scored a landmark victory, proving that the social media giants had created ‘addiction machines’ that harmed mental health.
By Ella Spitz, The Indypendent
In a petition that’s garnered over 3,800 signatures since October, the AIM coalition (New Yorkers for an AI Moratorium, including the groups NYC-DSA Tech Action, Alliance for Quality Education, Parent Coalition for Student Privacy, MORE-UFT, and the Coalition for Racially Just Public Schools) is calling for a two-year moratorium on the use of generative AI in NYC public schools.
Sadistic Online Exploitation of Vulnerable Children
By Katie McQue, The Guardian
In cases of sadistic online exploitation, perpetrators target vulnerable teens on social media platforms and online games. These predators then compel their victims into producing child sexual abuse material (CSAM), harming themselves and others, or, in extreme cases, attempting suicide.
Cockroach! From a Post to a Party
By Shiksha Dural, The Hindu
What started as a satirical response to a Supreme Court remark has evolved into one of India’s most talked-about protest movements. The Cockroach Janata Party, led by Boston University student Abhijeet Dipke, has transformed from an online campaign into a nationwide agitation over education reforms.
By Sonali Kolhatkar and Jeff Cohen, Rising Up With Sonali
Founded in 1986, FAIR is a national media watch group that works for structural reform in the media industry, to break up the dominant media conglomerates, establish independent public broadcasting and promote strong nonprofit sources of information.