RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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See the full story · 5 sources‘The issue is whether I can be trusted as a steward of Warner’s CNN,’ Ellison wrote. ‘There has been speculation about my politics, my loyalties, my intentions’
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The CEO of Paramount Skydance, the parent company of CBS News, has defended his politics after pushback over his attempted multi-billion-dollar buyout of Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns CNN and HBO.
David Ellison broke his silence about the $110 billion deal - currently stalled due to a legal challenge from 12 states that alleges it would “extinguish competition” - to address “speculation about my politics, my loyalties, my intentions.”
In an op-ed for The New York Times Tuesday, Ellison said he believed resistance to the deal is not because the merger will give Paramount too much control over the media but was more about his own political views.
“The issue is whether I can be trusted as a steward of Warner’s CNN,” he wrote. “There has been speculation about my politics, my loyalties, my intentions.”
Under Ellison, CBS News has undergone a dramatic transformation after he installed Bari Weiss, founder of anti-woke media outlet The Free Press, as editor-in-chief. Much scrutiny has focused on major changes at the network’s flagship news program 60 Minutes, which has seen the departure of high-profile correspondents and been dogged by claims that newsroom leadership has steered coverage to favor the Trump administration and Israel.
Fired 60 Minutes correspondent Cecilia Vega , dismissed by Weiss in May, alleged that network management pushed to include claims in coverage that could not be verified. Vega said she was “scared to be talking” about her experience working with Weiss , but noted that “there is a lot at stake.”
In The Times op-ed, Ellison sought to reassure Americans that “journalists will continue to answer to the facts and to all the people they serve — not to any party or cause” should the media merger take place.
“Unfortunately, I can’t give anyone a view into my heart and mind, but I can share this: I have regularly voted for candidates of both parties; I hold some views that would be called conservative and others that would be called liberal, just like most Americans; and when it comes to our news operations, I do not aspire to lead these companies to bend their newsrooms to my views,” Ellison wrote. “I believe that news should be based on facts and truth.”
He continued: “Great news organizations like CNN and CBS News are here to tell it straight down the middle. That requires newsrooms that reflect the whole world, not one side of it,” he continued.
“And it requires independence. Our journalists will continue to answer to the facts and to all the people they serve — not to any party or cause.”
The CEO also took aim at AI in the op-ed and pledged to invest in “real” journalists. “In an age when so much of what fills our screens is machine-generated or engineered to enrage, journalism from real reporters matters more than ever,” he said. “That is the work I intend to pay for, patiently, for a long time.”
The Trump administration’s Justice Department gave a green light to the deal in June and said the transaction poses no threat to competition across streaming, traditional TV or the Hollywood movie industry.
That decision followed an April dinner in Washington, D.C. hosted by Ellison in honor of Trump, The Times previously reported. Weiss was reportedly in attendance and CBS News staffers told the outlet that there were concerns within the newsroom that the dinner created “a perception of coziness between the news division and the Trump administration.”
Following the Justice Department’s green light, 12 states, led by California, then sued to block Paramount’s pending buyout of Warner, alleging that such a combination would “extinguish competition” in Hollywood and lead to fewer choices for consumers, particularly moviegoers and cable customers.
Critics of the deal include Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who said it was “not acceptable” and “must be opposed.”
“Not content to controlling our economy and our political system, the Oligarchs are now consolidating control over the media,” Sanders wrote in a post on X in June. “Trump’s ally David Ellison is poised to control both CBS and CNN.”
Paramount has called the states’ claims meritless and vowed to “vigorously defend” its merger.
Ellison is the son of billionaire Larry Ellison, the founder of software company Oracle. The mogul, 81, has developed a friendship with Trump “that has helped his tech company’s business as well as his son’s effort to assemble a media conglomerate,” according to The Wall Street Journal.
In response, the White House said that the president is “committed to working with every American business and business leader.”
Trump has also praised David Ellison in public remarks. “You’re going to be a great success,” the president said at a Miami speech in March after spotting the businessman in the crowd. “You’re going to blow away your father, and he’ll be very happy about that because he loves you.”
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