The worst thing about today's media environment is that — bad as it is — it is easy to imagine how things might get worse in 2026.
Traditional journalism outlets buffeted on all sides by misinformation, weak-kneed ownership and a hostile White House will struggle to earn back public trust even as the need for fair, accurate reporting grows.
Smaller groups of wealthy businesspeople control larger swaths of the country's information ecosystem, pitting their overall corporate interests against the public's desire for accurate journalism challenging powerful institutions in society.
And the biggest media deal of recent years is looming over everything, with ominous consequences for streaming, journalism, the film industry and consumers — no matter who finally closes on a purchase.
The real wild card here is the audience, which has more power than it realizes. The fall and rise of Jimmy Kimmel proved that viewers can make their preferences known in ways that preserve free expression, forcing media owners to show some backbone.
But the public will have to get more involved in 2026, weighing in with their viewing choices and their pocketbooks to make sure the options that bring the most freedom and ethical behavior are also the most profitable.
Here's a look at five complicated predictions I have for media in 2026, some of which herald significantly tough times ahead for professionals in the business and the general public.
No matter who wins the contest to buy Warner Bros. Discovery, the public may be the biggest loser
The largest media deal in recent years involves a tug-of-war between Netflix and Paramount over the purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery — itself a gigantic media company that's home to one of the industry's major streamers (HBO Max), one of Hollywood's biggest film studios (Warner Bros.), TV's most consistent source of high-quality series (HBO) and one of the news industry's largest brands (CNN).
As I write this, Netflix seems poised to win, favored by the board of directors with its offer of $27.75 per share, or close to $83 billion, for the part of the company that includes the film studio, HBO and HBO Max, DC Studios and the Warner Bros. film library — spinning off cable TV-centered assets like CNN and Discovery into a separate company. And the board at Warner Bros. Discovery has rejected the latest bid from Paramount, which valued the entire company — including cable assets — at $30 per share.
Either way, the public risks a lot. A Netflix win would combine streaming services with about 420 million subscriptions between the two of them and little indication of how this new company will be managed. Will it pull a Disney and allow its new subsidiaries to mostly operate the way they have been? Or will it insist on short theatrical runs for movies, hobbling the theater industry; leverage its control of production to lower wages for content creators; and use its control of streaming to raise subscription prices for consumers? (Fees for its top-tier service have doubled in the past decade, from $12 monthly in 2014 to $24.99 per month now — an increase beyond the rate of inflation.)
A Paramount win presents different concerns. Under new CEO David Ellison, the company has already shown a willingness to curry favor with President Trump, who has stated he wants ownership of CNN to change amid its tough reporting and criticism of his administration. Its bid is backed by the personal wealth of Ellison's billionaire father, the tech mogul Larry Ellison, an ally of Trump who also leads a group of investors poised to acquire the U.S. operations of social media giant TikTok — and by wealth funds connected to regimes in the Middle East with terrible human rights records.
The federal government could address questions about monopoly and industry dominance by enacting measures to limit the power of these combined companies. But at a time when federal regulatory agencies seem more concerned with weighing how proposed deals will affect the president's agenda, the public seems to have few champions left in this process.
2026 could be a do-or-die moment for the film industry, which must find a better way to make its case to consumers
In 2025, we learned things can fall apart pretty quickly, after they've been in decline for a long while. It has been tempting for Hollywood to blame most of its problems on streamers like Netflix, accusing the company of undercutting theaters by refusing to allow their movies to play there for very long.
But the possible purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery's film studios by Netflix is just the latest rapid fall in a decline that has lasted for years. The film industry needs to make a better argument for getting people to go to theaters — a release schedule filled with creatively lagging blockbusters and niche-appeal Oscar bait films won't do it, especially when viewers can watch so much of this content on huge screens from the comfort of their homes.
In some ways, the studios made their own problems here. When big media companies started their own streaming services, they poured billions of dollars into building an industry that needed lots of original content.
Decades ago, TV series like Adolescence, Stranger Things, Task, Mare of Easttown, Severance and The Studio might have been midlevel films — quality original stories not based on comic books or sequels or high-profile intellectual property. But these days, those projects land on streaming services, giving people even fewer reasons to leave their homes. (According to Box Office Mojo, of the 10 highest-grossing movies in 2025, just one — Ryan Coogler's Sinners — was based on an original idea not connected to a sequel, comic book or video game.)
The theater business needs to find a new argument for getting audiences in its seats, regardless of who buys Warner Bros. Discovery.
Vulnerable traditional news outlets will face vaguely explained overhauls from owners with troubling agendas
CBS News stands as Exhibit A of this phenomenon, with new evening anchor Tony Dokoupil sending a message to viewers Jan. 1 saying the press "put too much weight in the analysis of academics or elites, and not enough on you."
It's a nervy statement to make as he becomes the face of a news operation once considered the gold standard of television journalism. How specifically did storied programs like 60 Minutes or Face the Nation betray viewers before he came along? His statement didn't say.
But media critics like me worry that nonsensical culture war language like that is mostly a smoke screen for changing news coverage to fit the ideological preferences of new owners at Paramount and CBS News' new editor-in-chief, Bari Weiss.
Weiss faced an explosive controversy at the end of 2025 when she pulled a story set to air on 60 Minutes about a notorious prison in El Salvador where the Trump administration was sending migrants. Weiss argued the story wasn't ready for air, telling staff in a meeting, "We need to be able to get the principals on the record and on camera." A CBS spokesperson said it would air at a later date. The correspondent on the piece, Sharyn Alfonsi, sent a memo saying the move is "not an editorial decision, it is a political one."
CBS News has never had an editor-in-chief before, so why did it create this job for someone with no experience in TV news? (Weiss previously wrote and edited opinion columns for The New York Times and is the co-founder of the online outlet The Free Press.) In pushing back on criticism of her decision to pull the story, Weiss wrote in a memo that she was trying to "win back" the trust of viewers.
But which viewers? How does she know holding a story like this will have any effect on trust levels, which have been falling for all traditional journalism outlets for decades? And, given the new owners' past moves to mollify Trump and conservative critics, how do average viewers know these changes aren't just more of the same?
My concern, as a longtime media critic, is that someone who has clashed ideologically with traditional news outlets is now imposing her political views — and the views of her bosses, Paramount's ownership — under the guise of addressing journalism issues.
It's time for Weiss to present a detailed analysis of CBS News' work — especially 60 Minutes — to back her implication that shortcomings in its reporting have created this trust problem. Because, otherwise, she runs the risk of looking like another opportunistic executive using turmoil in leadership to press her own political agenda.
The Trump administration's racist language will challenge news outlets
For years, many conservatives have criticized fact-based reporting about race and diversity from mainstream media outlets. They allege "liberal bias" after any attempt by news organizations to honestly report on the real-world impact of racism and other forms of discrimination.
The Trump administration shares that view, insisting government departments, media companies and colleges end their diversity, equity and inclusion programs or suffer disastrous consequences. They're not bringing change by presenting new evidence; they're simply punishing and pressuring people into rejecting previously accepted notions about how oppression exists in the United States.
![White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller this January. The previous month, Miller appeared on Fox News decrying what he described as "consistent high rates of welfare use, high rates of criminal activity, [and] consistent failures to assimilate" among immigrants to the U.S., targeting Somali Americans. Miller called for a "moratorium on immigration from Third World countries until we can heal ourselves as a nation."](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/b92db1d/2147483647/strip/true/resize/840x^/format/webp/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fnpr.brightspotcdn.com%2Fdims3%2Fdefault%2Fstrip%2Ffalse%2Fcrop%2F7083x5312%20565%200%2Fresize%2F7083x5312%21%2F%3Furl%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F3d%2F52%2Fdd11d9a24327a439593748ac9e52%2Fgettyimages-2253879831.jpg)
And their words are beyond concerning: The vice president of the United States has used language about white pride that some politicians feel comes too close to the language utilized by white supremacists. A senior White House official talks about immigration in ways that demonize immigrants and pines for an immigration policy from the days, decades past, when America was a nation strictly segregated by race. The president has admitted that a racist comment he once denied making was something he actually did say.
But what is even more disturbing is how little these instances have dented the news cycle, challenging traditional news outlets to consistently and constantly report on these actions as the displays of open racism they truly are.
As a person of color in America, I don't want to see a return to the days when whiteness was considered a badge of ability or evidence of merit. But that seems to be a disturbing trend in media and politics which will only worsen in 2026.
If ideologues want to have a good-faith discussion about these issues, traditional media outlets should facilitate that by including perspectives from all sides of the issues. But they should also resist bad-faith arguments rooted in prejudice, stereotypes and the convenient targeting of marginalized groups.
Public media will find ways to stand on its own, but with a notable loss
It has been heartening to see all the ways communities, stations and philanthropists have come together in an effort to help public media outlets after Congress voted to claw back federal funding in mid-2025.
Foundations like MacArthur and Knight have gathered funds to help rural stations stay in operation. (The Knight Foundation also funds professorships across the country, including the one I hold at Washington and Lee University.) NPR itself has agreed to reduce fees it charges to some local stations, especially those hardest hit by the loss of federal funds. And listeners across the country have stepped up with increased donations helping their favorite stations weather the changes.
Some critics might suggest these efforts show that the system didn't need federal funding in the first place. But that overlooks the staff reductions, shrinking resources and cutbacks implemented by networks and stations to cope.
I always thought federal funding was important to public media for a different reason. In these times, media platforms are increasingly focused on what — or who — pays their bills. Subscribers, advertisers, owners — each have their own outsize influence in different ways.
Federal money for public media ensured that, on some level, every tax-paying American helped fund work done by NPR, PBS and assorted public media outlets. Opponents may have believed public media was biased, but a majority of Americans supported federal funding for public media. Every American had a vested interest in the system, and everyone in public media knew and respected that.
Without federal funding, public media will still cover America comprehensively, accurately and fairly. But it will go into 2026 without that extra bit of support from the American people, which is a sad and unnecessary loss.
Eric Deggans is critic at large at NPR and the Knight chair of journalism and media ethics at Washington and Lee University in Virginia.
Warner Bros. Discovery, Warner Bros. Pictures, HBO, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Paramount+ and Walt Disney Pictures are all among NPR's financial supporters.
Copyright 2026 NPR
