Two big TV news outlets, CBS and CNN, will now be controlled by Trump allies. Some journalists are worried about pressure on their coverage.
Transcript
DEBBIE ELLIOTT, HOST:
Let’s spare a moment now to consider the week that journalists at CNN had. Those who cover the White House were blocked from working there, along with journalists at Politico and MS NOW, all because President Trump disapproved of their news coverage. They were eventually let back after a court order, but then the White House banned CNN from traveling on Air Force One this weekend. All that drama eclipsed an arguably more sweeping change for the network. CNN is getting new owners – ones allied with Trump. NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik joins us now to discuss this development. Who’s taking over, and what’s changing?
DAVID FOLKENFLIK, BYLINE: So Paramount is taking over Warner Bros. Discovery, which sounds like, OK, it’s one big corporate deal. The person in control of Paramount is David Ellison. He’s a movie producer, television producer, who is backed by the money of his father, Larry Ellison, the co-founder of the digital titan Oracle, one of the richest human beings on the planet and an advisor and ally of the President. And let’s just be clear, the Ellisons have gotten so much out of the president. And they were approved, you know, a little over 14 months ago to take over Paramount. They didn’t even own that when Trump took office back in January of 2025.
ELLIOTT: And now Paramount’s acquisition of Warner Bros., which owns CNN, looks like it’s moving forward because there was a settlement.
FOLKENFLIK: There’s been a settlement because what happened was a bunch of Democratic attorneys general, a coalition of 12 of them, sued to block this on the grounds of antitrust. That is, this is a huge concentration of Hollywood powerhouses. And this was resolved with a series of concessions.
ELLIOTT: I mean, I would imagine CNN would be very concerned that there’s going to be pressure from the president to control their content.
FOLKENFLIK: There’s great concern within CNN, and it’s on two levels, one of which is the ties that I’ve talked about with David Ellison. The other is they’re looking at the experience of CBS News in the year-plus that the Ellisons have owned it. And CBS has been convulsed by controversy and crisis over whether the editorial decisions by the new editor in chief of CBS News, Barry Weiss, who has often been critical of the media as too tough on Trump.
So CNN now will have a board over it to be established within six months of the takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery, in which five experienced journalists are going to be named to it. Only two of them can be from any one party. So the idea is to make it nonpartisan, and they get to sort of adjudicate if there are journalistic issues and controversies in which they are at loggerheads from CNN with their corporate owners. And actually, that’s been extended to CBS News, as well.
ELLIOTT: OK, so as part of the settlement, Paramount agreed to establish an editorial oversight board as protection. What can you tell us about how the editorial board will function?
FOLKENFLIK: So, you know, they’re supposed to review disputes as they come up, but this is terra incognita. We don’t know. We’ve never seen things quite like this at major American outfits. You’ve seen ombudsman at major news organizations, including currently our own. You’ve seen certain kinds of insulation, newsroom firewalls that you have at places like The New York Times and NPR and others, that say that corporate interests cannot determine editorial decisions. This editorial board will draw attention to crises if they come up as – particularly if they issue their reviews publicly, but it’s not 100% clear how this would work.
ELLIOTT: So I’m curious about how much power this board will actually have. I mean, obviously, it’s written into a legal settlement. Does that give it some teeth should the company not comply?
FOLKENFLIK: You’re probably going to see appointed within CNN somebody who’s willing to do business with the Ellisons. Doesn’t mean necessarily compromise their journalistic integrity – but understand what kind of coverage the Ellisons might be interested in. And so, the degree to which there will be such disputes to me is an open question.
I will say also, you know, you saw at two major publications taken over by Rupert Murdoch, the media magnate – at the Times of London in the 80s, the Wall Street Journal in the late aughts, around 2007 – there were such boards created. And after sort of raising a question here and there, he just kind of ignored and then overrode them. He appointed his own people, molded it to his liking and to his resemblance. So it didn’t fundamentally matter.
But you say, look, it’s an illegal settlement. Technically, you could have the attorneys general or others take it to court to make the judge enforce that. And the reality is, I’m not sure that’s something we want as a country. I don’t know if you want elected officials to go to the judiciary to render decisions on whether or newsroom decisions are appropriate.
So this is kind of a conundrum, as well. I’m not sure even if people have objections to how the Ellisons operate, they necessarily want newsroom decisions to be made by public officials, you know, who are supposed to be being held accountable by those same newsrooms.
And I think what’s really, you know, the takeaway is that you have these two now major television news outlets, CBS and CNN, owned and ultimately controlled by allies of the current president. You know, what may change is that the president himself is weakened perhaps after these midterms, and maybe they see less need to do business and to placate or to appeal to him. But then that means that’s still being determined on political rather than journalistic consideration.
ELLIOTT: That’s NPR’s David Folkenflik. Thanks so much.
FOLKENFLIK: You bet.
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