Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison pledged Thursday to maintain CNN’s “editorial independence” after coming out on top in the bidding war for the outlet’s parent company Warner Bros. Discovery.
CNBC “Squawk on the Street” host David Faber asked Ellison during an interview whether CNN would end up “more beholden to the Trump administration” under Paramount, which has been accused of nudging CBS News – an acquisition from last year – to the political right.
“Editorial independence will absolutely be maintained. It’s maintained at CBS. It’ll be maintained at CNN,” the exec responded.
“And, really, who we want to talk to is the 70% of Americans and really around the world that identify as center-left, as center-right. And we want to be in the truth business. We want to be in the trust business. And that’s not going to change,” he added.
Paramount Skydance last week emerged victorious with a $111 billion offer to take over Warner Bros. and its assets, including CNN, HBO and thousands of film titles, following a brutal monthslong bidding war with Netflix.
The purchase still needs regulatory approval.
CNN staffers are reportedly worried that the deal could threaten their newsroom’s independence, after Ellison installed Bari Weiss at CBS News last year to bring more conservative voices to the network.
Anchors, producers and correspondents at the lefty cable network are concerned that President Trump – who is friendly with Larry Ellison, the billionaire founder of Oracle and David Ellison’s father – will be on the phone daily orchestrating CBS and CNN coverage, The Post reported.
“CNN is an incredible brand with an incredible team,” Ellison said Thursday in an attempt to assuage such concerns.
“And we absolutely believe in, you know, the independence that needs to be maintained obviously for those incredible journalists, and we want to support that going forward.”
Weiss, a former New York Times opinion journalist, sold her site The Free Press to Paramount for a reported $150 million and took the helm at CBS News last October.
Known for her criticism of “cancel culture” and “woke” politics, she shelved a “60 Minutes” episode on El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison because it lacked voices from the Trump administration.
“CBS Mornings” producer Shawna Thomas told staffers she is stepping down in the latest shake-up under Weiss, according to a Variety report on Thursday, following an exit from producer Alicia Hastey, who accused the network of pressuring journos to “self-censor.”
The president has long blasted CNN’s coverage of him as “dishonest,” and in December, he called for any deal involving Warner Bros. to hand CNN over to new owners.
The younger Ellison assured Trump administration officials that he would make sweeping changes to CNN if he bought Warner Bros., the Wall Street Journal reported in December.
“Larry Ellison is great and his son David is great,” Trump told reporters in October. “They’re friends of mine. They’re big supporters of mine, and they’ll do the right thing.”
CNN and CBS did not immediately respond to The Post’s requests for comment.
Ellison on Thursday emphasized that Paramount Skydance’s focus for CNN will be to invest in expanding its streaming availability.
“CNN and CBS News are brands that we also really want to be a part of transitioning to streaming so that consumers have the choice,” he told CNBC.
“If they want to watch our incredible news brands on broadcast, they can do that. If they want to watch on cable, they can do that. But we also want to create a world where if they want to watch on streaming, they can do that, and where we can really meet consumers where they are.”
“We’re going to invest in the news business. And we think this is going to – this transaction will be a positive for both CBS News and CNN.”
Last October, CNN launched its streamer All Access at $6.99 a month.
It had introduced CNN+ in 2022, but the streaming service was squashed after Discovery closed its deal to buy AT&T’s WarnerMedia, creating Warner Bros. Discovery.
