Hello Kind and Beautiful Humans,
I've been sitting with something this weekend and I can't shake it.
Paramount Skydance just announced it's buying Warner Bros. Discovery for $110.9 billion. That's billion with a B. When this deal closes, one family — the Ellisons — will control CBS, CNN, HBO, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros., and a library of shows and movies that goes from Batman to SpongeBob to The Godfather.
Everybody's talking about the money. I want to talk about something else.
See, I'm a movie guy. Spent 35 years in this business — Disney, Fox, DreamWorks. And I'm also a political science student at heart who never stopped being curious about how power works. So when I look at what's happening in media right now, my brain doesn't go to spreadsheets. It goes to two movies that tried to warn us about exactly this moment — decades ago.
"I'm Mad as Hell" Was Never the Point
You probably know Network (1976) for one scene. Howard Beale, a news anchor losing his mind on live TV, screams: "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!" Bumper stickers. Memes. Political rallies. You've heard it.
But here's what most people miss. That speech wasn't the message. It was the trap.
The movie wasn't cheering for Beale. It was showing us how the machine ate him alive. The network executives didn't shut him down. They gave him a bigger stage. Why? Because his anger got ratings. His breakdown was good for business.
The real villain isn't the angry man behind the desk. It's the programming executive, played by Faye Dunaway, who looks at a man falling apart and sees a content opportunity. She doesn't care if he's right. She cares if he's watchable.
Sound familiar?
Right now, in 2026, anger is the product. Clicks run on outrage. Eyeballs stick around for fear. CBS just put a former opinion columnist in charge of its entire news operation, brought in 18 "commentators" while showing veteran journalists the door, and delayed an investigation that might upset the people in power. That's not journalism evolving. That's Network happening in real life.
The screenwriter, Paddy Chayefsky, understood something important: the most dangerous way to hide the truth isn't to silence people. It's to make so much noise that nobody can hear it.
The Bond Villain Who Became a Business Plan
Twenty-one years after Network, James Bond tried to warn us again.
In Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), the bad guy isn't some general with a nuclear weapon. He's a media mogul named Elliot Carver. And his evil plan? He doesn't report on wars. He starts them. He creates a military crisis between countries, then makes sure his network is the only one with the story. He doesn't make up the news. He makes up the reality the news is based on.
In 1997, that felt like a fun movie plot. In 2026, it feels like a documentary.
Now look — I'm not saying media companies are starting wars. The conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza, Venezuela, Iran — those are real. People are really suffering. But here's what Carver understood that we need to understand: you don't have to make things up. You just have to choose which truths get loud and which ones stay quiet. That's the game. And it's being played right now, everywhere, by fewer and fewer people.
Think about this: one family is about to control CBS News and CNN — two of the three biggest TV news operations in America. That same family has a close relationship with the sitting President. There's Middle Eastern money attached to the deal. Former FTC Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya said it plain: "One family is about to control CBS, CNN, HBO, and TikTok."
Elliot Carver doesn't feel like a movie villain anymore.
What We're Not Talking About
Here's the part that keeps me up at night.
While every news cycle runs wall-to-wall with global conflict, what's not on the screen? Millions of Americans who can't afford to see a doctor. A housing market that's locked out an entire generation. Schools that are failing the kids who need them most. A mental health crisis hitting our young people that should be front page news every single day. The gap between the richest Americans and everyone else getting wider and wider.
I'm not saying those global stories don't matter. They do. But the amount of that coverage — the way it takes up all the oxygen — that's not an accident. That's a business decision. A missile strike gets more clicks than a story about why your kid's school can't keep a math teacher. And when fewer companies own more of the pipeline, the push toward clicks over substance only gets stronger.
Elliot Carver didn't just create conflict. He used conflict to keep people looking the wrong way. That's what's happening to us right now.
Jimism: "The day you stop being curious is the day someone else starts doing your thinking for you."
So What Do We Do About It?
I'm not going to tell you to turn off the news. That's not the answer. But I will ask you to slow down and think about how you're taking it in.
Next time a headline makes your blood pressure spike, stop. Just for a second. Ask yourself: who benefits from me feeling this way right now? Remember — Howard Beale's rage felt righteous. But the network owned that rage. Don't let anyone own yours.
Then ask a different kind of question: what am I not seeing? What stories aren't showing up in my feed? Because the stuff that's missing is often the stuff that matters most to your actual life. And somebody made a choice to leave it out.
And maybe the biggest thing: don't be afraid to ask tough questions out loud. When a media company reshapes its newsroom to match a president's preferences, then turns around and asks for that president's blessing on a $111 billion deal — that deserves questions. Not political questions. Accountability questions. The kind that make people uncomfortable. Those are usually the right ones.
The Warning We Keep Ignoring
There's a scene near the end of Network that most people forget. The corporate boss pulls Beale into a dark boardroom and tells him the truth: there are no countries, no people — just money. The world is a business. And Beale's job is to sell that message.
So Beale does. His ratings drop. And when his anger stops making money, the network has him killed. On air.
Chayefsky was telling us something in 1976 that hits different in 2026: the system doesn't fear your anger. It needs your anger. What it fears is your attention. Your curiosity. Your refusal to look where they're pointing instead of where they don't want you to look.
Two movies. Fifty years of warnings.
I think it's time we started listening.
Leave your corner of the world better than you found it. —Jim
