Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, Executive Director of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund and Steering Committee member of the Committee for the First Amendment, spoke about the threat to free speech and democracy posed by the proposed Paramount-Skydance acquisition of Warner Brothers Discovery, Inc at a spotlight hearing convened by Senator Cory Booker, ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust, and Consumer Rights. Alongside actor and producer Mark Ruffalo, Senior Advisor for Democracy Defenders Action Katie Phang, Writers Guild of America East Legal Director Michael Isaac, and Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker David Borenstein, Ms. Verheyden-Hilliard warned of the dangers that such a consolidation would pose to free speech and creative expression in the United States:
“The monopoly owner easily becomes a proxy force for government-approved or preferred viewpoint and directed censorship. They will cloak government censorship behind their curtain. This poses a pure threat to our First Amendment…you can have a hundred channels and thousands of programs, but when they are under singular control, the content — what we hear in America — will be cabined. What is expressed and what we hear becomes increasingly rigidly canned into homogeneous product. The richness of the human experience, of brilliant creative minds, of differing points of view, of dissent, of challenge to the status quo, becomes silenced.“
In addition to Senator Booker, who convened the spotlight hearing, those in attendance included U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD-8), and Senators Alex Padilla (D-CA), Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Adam Schiff (D-CA), and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT). Ms. Verheyden-Hilliard answered questions from Representative Raskin and Senator Booker following her remarks. You can find a full recording of the spotlight hearing here, as well as a full written transcript and video clips of Ms. Verheyden-Hilliard’s testimony below.
Opening testimony:
Question from Representative Raskin:
Question from Senator Booker:
Full Transcript of Testimony: