{"id":780,"date":"2026-08-05T15:40:03","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T15:40:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=780"},"modified":"2026-08-05T15:40:03","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T15:40:03","slug":"this-isnt-about-rosebud-david-ellison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=780","title":{"rendered":"This Isn\u2019t About Rosebud, David Ellison"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The heir to one of the largest fortunes on earth, who currently runs a billion-dollar media colossus, David Ellison has come hat in hand to New York Times<\/em> readers asking for their sympathy. He would like, he shares in the op-ed, for us to understand his heart, and imagine him as the child he once was who simply loved movies, and wants only to make people feel what he felt in the dark. He\u2019s a would-be Alfredo threading the projector in Cinema Paradiso<\/em>! He\u2019s a keeper of the flame! He also, he makes clear in the midst of this saccharine plea, a voter of both parties.<\/p>\n

Read more Liberals Are Shaming Howard Zinn\u2019s Memory Yet Again<\/a><\/p>\n

These points miss the mark.<\/p>\n

Ellison, so buffeted by billions and flatterers, embarrasses himself. He cannot imagine that the public actually cares about law, statutes, power, or really about anything except him, his politics, whether he can be \u201ctrusted\u201d as a steward of CNN. The essay\u2019s thesis is \u201cit\u2019s all about me,\u201d which of course is part of the problem. Research on power shows that those who wield it cannot actually perceive others\u2019 interests and minds. One researcher has compared excessive power to traumatic brain injury; and Ellison appears to be a case study.<\/p>\n

But why did he write it? The reason Ellison is so desperate is that 12 state attorneys general, led by California\u2019s Rob Bonta, have sued to block the Paramount\u2013Warner Bros. Discovery merger under the Clayton Act. And days later, the Writers Guild of America followed suit, with its own case. Both are solid, textbook antitrust cases applying well-established legal standards to the merger\u2019s competitive effects across three markets. We\u2019re not talking about novel legal theories or untested applications of the law. Just facts: This deal would result in multiple highly concentrated markets with devastating effects for writers, movie theater owners, and consumers, to name just a few of the impacted markets. A judge granted a temporary restraining order recognizing the strength of their legal case.<\/p>\n

Knowing this and the seriousness of these cases helps to understand this solipsistic letter. The tone is that of bewilderment. He might actually lose, which he will, because he is up against law and the public, not someone who needs more emotional connection.<\/p>\n

Ellison knows how to manage Washington with dinner parties, like those he just threw for Donald Trump, and lobbyists. But state antitrust enforcement is a different world. It runs on statutes: law wielded by people who have to respond to the public. Ellison is reduced to writing personal essays in The New York Times<\/em> because his usual tools of persuasion don\u2019t work when state attorneys general are listening to the statutes.<\/p>\n

And history tells us he has reason to be scared. We have seen monopolists like him, and his ilk, come before. And antitrust laws then, and now, ensure a fair playing field. May 3, 1948, Justice William Douglas wrote for a 7\u20131 Supreme Court that the \u201cBig Five\u201d studios, including Paramount, Warner Bros., and the \u201clittle three,\u201d including Universal, Columbia, and United Artists, conspired to monopolize the film industry. The studios were ordered to completely separate film production and distribution from theater exhibition by selling off their owned cinema chains. The decision permanently prohibited anti-competitive methods like forcing theaters to buy multiple films in bundles and coordinated ticket prices. The decision opened the industry to allow for independent producers and actors, leading to an explosion of creativity.<\/p>\n

Read more This Was the Decade of Feminist Uprisings in Latin America<\/a><\/p>\n

Douglas understood, as we do now, that emotional pleas like the one Ellison penned this week are a distraction.<\/p>\n

Industrial power should be scattered into many hands, Douglas wrote in a dissent opinion that year, \u201cso that the fortunes of the people will not be dependent on the whim or caprice, the political prejudices, the emotional stability of a few self-appointed men.\u201d<\/p>\n

When he wrote that, he anticipated the howls of the Ellison elite: \u201cThe fact that they are not vicious men but respectable and social-minded is irrelevant.\u201d His argument was later echoed by the great SCOTUS chief Earl Warren, who noted that Congress built decentralization into the statute because Congress was under risk of great concentrations of power.<\/p>\n

Antitrust law is not about David Ellison\u2019s Rosebud. Antitrust law exists so that a free press and an open market never hang on the temperament of one well-meaning billionaire.<\/p>\n

Read more The Chilling Trump Order Threatening All Americans<\/a><\/p>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Nation Magazine<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":779,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy"],"yoast_head":"\nThis Isn\u2019t About Rosebud, David Ellison - Atlas Living Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=780\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"This Isn\u2019t About Rosebud, David Ellison - Atlas Living Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Nation Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=780\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Atlas Living Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-08-05T15:40:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=780#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=780\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/f6233854b1f92a6d21147fe5d5e58abc\"},\"headline\":\"This Isn\u2019t About Rosebud, David Ellison\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-08-05T15:40:03+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=780\"},\"wordCount\":759,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=780#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/08\\\/19d48056d88d578fec0ee3751f8ef352.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Economy\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=780#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=780\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=780\",\"name\":\"This Isn\u2019t About Rosebud, David Ellison - 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