Paramount Global, Verizon and any other companies trying to gain the government’s blessing for mergers should eliminate policies aimed at promoting diversity, equity and inclusion.That was the blunt message from FCC Chairman Brendan Carr in an interview with Bloomberg.“Any businesses that are looking for FCC approval, I would encourage them to get busy ending any sort of their invidious forms of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion discrimination,” Carr told the news outlet Friday.Carr said the commission’s review of deals would include looking for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion policies. That stance is consistent with the Donald Trump Administration’s broader efforts to stamp out Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (which the president even blamed, without proof, for causing a fatal plane crash in Washington, D.C. in January),Already, a number of media companies have been rolling back Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion efforts they had scaled up in recent years, especially in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death in 2020. Paramount last month joined the list, with its Co-CEOs telling employees that the company would no longer measure “success in progress on companywide Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives, including aspirational representation goals.”Under the law, Carr said, the FCC can only “move forward and approve a transaction if we find that doing so serves the public interest,” Carr said. ““If there’s businesses out there that are still promoting invidious forms of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion discrimination, I really don’t see a path forward where the FCC could reach the conclusion that approving the transaction is going to be in the public interest.”Last summer, Paramount announced a long-in-the-works $8 billion deal to combine with Skydance Media, telling investors it expected to close the transaction by the end of June. The FCC, which is evaluating the deal because it involves the transfer of broadcast licenses, has already seized on the actions of CBS News and 60 Minutes. After a conservative group filed a “news distortion” complaint about varying edits of an interview of former Vice President Kamala Harris last fall, Carr has said the matter would factor into the merger review.Trump, meanwhile, has sued Paramount and CBS News over the interview edits. The $20 billion complaint, filed in Texas, says the interview was shaped in a way that cost traffic and viewership to the president’s Trump Media and Technology Group, which includes social media platform Truth Social.Lawyers for CBS and Paramount earlier this month filed a motion to dismiss the suit, calling it an “affront to the First Amendment.” Just as Disney opted to pay a $15 million settlement over a Trump claim against ABC News rather than risk further Trump-led scrutiny, Paramount has held internal discussions about settling the Harris interview suit. A payout, though, could simultaneously ease the regulatory path for the merger and alienate a large swath of staffers in the news division, leaving a reputational stain.
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