Journalists Against ‘Unbiased Reporting’? Jim Acosta Joins Big-Name Open Letter Opposing Paramount CNN Deal

A group of outraged journalists, media personalities, and academics, including anti-Trump stalwart and former CNN anchor, Jim Acosta, has penned an open letter to Paramount opposing its merger with CNN’s parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery, WBD. The letter calls the deal an “arrangement” designed to “circumvent constitutional safeguards.”In February, Paramount secured a deal to buy WBD for roughly $110 billion after a months-long bidding war with Netflix. The deal has prompted concerns from journalists and Democrats; Paramount is run by David Ellison, the son of Larry Ellison, who is a software billionaire and a Trump supporter. In the letter to Paramount, first obtained by the Status newsletter, a group of roughly 200 current and former journalists — such as former ABC News anchor Sam Donaldson, former CBS News correspondent Judy Muller, and current CNN contributor S.E. Cupp — as well as documentarians and academics opposing the merger claim that it would “open the door to improper political meddling in journalists’ editorial decisions.”The letter says that Mr. Ellison has “already made such sweeping changes to appease Trump at Paramount’s current major news holding, CBS News,” such as hiring an ombudsman to review complaints of bias. It also notes that before Mr. Ellison acquired Paramount, his company, Skydance, made written commitments to the Federal Communications Commission to “unbiased reporting.”“Revered producers and reporters have quit rather than be censored; shows Trump dislikes, like The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, have been cancelled; and CBS Evening News has taken to airing flattering features on Trump officials, like one calling Secretary of State Marco Rubio the ‘ultimate Florida man,’” the letter says.The message adds, “With this track record, Ellison will likely alter CNN’s editorial direction (not to mention meddle with HBO’s documentaries) to be more friendly to the administration, threatening press freedom.”In November, the Guardian reported that Larry Ellison had conversations with “connections at the White House” about “possibly axing some of the CNN hosts whom Donald Trump is said to loathe,” if Paramount acquires WBD. Amid concerns about sweeping changes at CNN, David Ellison has said that the cable network’s independence “needs to be maintained.”“CNN is an incredible brand with an incredible team,” he told CNBC’s David Faber in March. However, he suggested that there may be some changes at the network, saying, “Really, who we want to talk to is the 70 percent of Americans — and really around the world — that identify as center left, as center right.”“We want to be in the truth business, we want to be in the trust business, and that’s not going to change,” he said. While Mr. Ellison says that CBS News has maintained its independence, internal critics at the Tiffany Network have alleged that there has been corporate interference. In December, the network temporarily held a segment on the Trump Administration’s policy of sending Venezuelan migrants to a prison in El Salvador. CBS News’s editor-in-chief, Bari Weiss, pulled the story two days before it was set to air, even as the “60 Minutes” team believed the story was complete and started to advertise it.The correspondent behind the story, Sharyn Alfonsi, said in a memo that the decision to pull the story was political. Ms. Weiss defended the decision, telling staff that the original story did not “advance the ball,” as she noted it did not include any interview with the administration officials behind the policy or a comment from the White House. The story eventually aired about a month later and was largely unchanged. Earlier this month, Ms. Alfonsi criticized CBS News’s leadership after she received the Ridenhour prize for courage.“I will not linger on the internal mechanics of the dust-up at CBS that led to our Cecot story being pulled, but we have to be honest about what it represents,” she said. “It wasn’t an isolated editorial argument. In my view, it was the result of a more aggressive contagion: the spread of corporate meddling and editorial fear. It’s hard to watch.”The letter sent to Paramount alleges that the WBD deal is a “political arrangement to circumvent constitutional safeguards, with severe consequences for American democracy.”Paramount did not respond to the Sun’s request for comment by the time of publication. The message is a continuation of the pressure from journalists and others to try to block the deal. It comes as California’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, is reportedly mulling a lawsuit to block the deal. Mr. Bonta has previously said that the pending transaction has “red flags everywhere.”But in a meeting with Hollywood stars, the attorney general said his office had not yet decided whether to take legal action.

Journalists Against ‘Unbiased Reporting’? Jim Acosta Joins Big-Name Open Letter Opposing Paramount CNN Deal

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