Candace Clement

The American mainstream media spent the last year normalizing and propping up a racist, xenophobic, misogynist candidate whose closest advisers include white nationalists and politicians with a track record of oppressing women, people of color, and the LGBTQI community. In the days since the election, hundreds of hate crimes have been reported. We’ve seen our friends and families living in fear. And yet the media continues to treat President-elect Donald Trump like he’s nothing out of the ordinary. It’s never been more apparent that the corporate media have failed the people of this nation. But the march toward centralized, consolidated media and communications platforms pushes on.

Look no further than AT&T, which just before the election announced its plan to buy Time Warner, the owner of CNN, HBO and TNT. If approved, it would be one of the biggest media mergers ever. Whether President-elect Trump will remain opposed is an open question. But one thing is clear: The last thing we need right now is a more powerful media gatekeeper. We must block this deal.

AT&T is an enormous media, telecom and Internet gatekeeper with a horrible track record of overcharging you, limiting your choices and spying on you. It’s still fighting Net Neutrality. It helps the government spy on people by turning over its customer records to the National Security Agency. It tries to stop communities from building their own broadband networks. It’s a member of ALEC, the corporate-backed lobbying group that's pushed legislation like pro-fracking, voter-suppression and “stand your ground” bills that disproportionately harm people of color. And now AT&T wants to get even bigger.

This merger would create a media powerhouse unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. AT&T would control mobile and wired Internet access, cable channels, movie franchises, a film studio and more. That means AT&T would control Internet access for hundreds of millions of people and the content they view, enabling it to prioritize its own offerings and use sneaky tricks to undermine Net Neutrality. This merger would give one bad company way too much power. Massive mergers like this — and the billions of dollars they waste — never work out for the rest of us. Urge policymakers to block this deal.