Likely New Owner of Paramount Pledges To Snuff Out Bias at CBS: Lawyer Tells FCC That CBS News Will Practice ‘Unbiased Journalism’

Skydance Media, the likely new owner of Paramount Global and its subsidiaries, including CBS News, has pledged to the Trump administration its commitment to “unbiased journalism” in a formal letter to the Federal Communications Commission, which must approve Skydance’s acquisition of Paramount. Attorneys for Skydance sent the letter to the FCC to memorialize a meeting at Washington between the head of the media company, David Ellison, and the chairman of the commission, Brendan Carr.The letter states that Mr. Ellison — son of the world’s second-richest man, Larry Ellison — discussed Skydance’s “commitment to unbiased journalism and its embrace of diverse viewpoints,” which it said will ensure CBS’s “editorial decision making reflects the varied ideological perspectives of American viewers.” It also promises to promote “non-discrimination and equal employment opportunity,” a clear reference to rolling back corporate DEI initiatives.CBS News has been plagued by persistent allegations of liberal bias for the last six decades, going back to its coverage of the war in Vietnam. In the last year, CBS has been persistently accused of anti-Trump and anti-Israel bias on its morning news program and on its flagship broadcast, “60 Minutes.” Oracle heir David Ellison (seen leaning over, in black) is present at a UFC event in Florida with President Trump earlier this year. InstagramFurthermore, CBS Inc. has been unusually aggressive in its diversity initiatives stemming from the “racial reckoning” of 2020, implementing formal racial quotas for its entertainment programming. In April, CBS settled a lawsuit brought by a former writer for “SEAL Team,” which was canceled last year, alleging he was discriminated against for being a straight, white male. His lawsuit was brought by American First Legal, the group founded by an adviser to President Trump, Stephen Miller.The Skydance letter, which urges the FCC to “promptly grant” approval of the Skydance deal, comes weeks after Paramount agreed to pay $16 million to settle Mr. Trump’s $20 billion lawsuit against CBS over the editing of Vice President Harris’s October 2024 interview with “60 Minutes.” As the litigation dragged on, so did the FCC’s review of the Skydance deal, which requires government approval. The prevailing theory for the delay in the review of the Skydance deal was that Mr. Trump’s lawsuit was impeding the approval process. Mr. Carr — whose agency is supposed to act independently from the White House — and Paramount both publicly insisted the two matters were unrelated. However, multiple reports stated that Paramount’s board believed the key to winning the FCC’s approval was to settle Mr. Trump’s lawsuit. With the settlement agreement, it is widely believed that the FCC will soon approve the Skydance deal, which has led media reporters to ponder how CBS News and Paramount’s other entities might start to look different once the new management takes over. Shortly after Paramount announced its settlement deal, there were indications that while Mr. Trump may not have received the hefty settlement amount he was looking for, he would be getting more concessions at CBS News, such as an effort to rein in the network’s longstanding left-wing bias. President Trump denounces CBS News in a conversation with Dan Bongino. RumbleIn the days before and after Mr. Ellison’s meeting with the FCC, a series of reports seemed to confirm that the Skydance chief is looking to make significant changes to CBS News’s editorial voice. Earlier this month, reports emerged that Mr. Ellison is in talks with the co-founder of a pro-Israel and anti-woke outlet, the Free Press, Bari Weiss, to acquire the Free Press and give her a non-managerial role at CBS News, trying to tame its liberal bias. Puck’s Matthew Belloni reported that if the deal goes through, Ms. Weiss would act as an “ideological guide of sorts.”Last year, the Free Press published multiple reports about CBS News’s anti-Israel bias, including guidance from the head of its standards and practices unit warning its journalists not to refer to Jerusalem as being in Israel. The Free Press also published secretly recorded audio from a morning meeting, on the anniversary of Hamas’s October 7 attack, in which the then-head of newsgathering, Adrienne Roark, was heard reprimanding a morning show co-host, Tony Dokoupil, for his sharp questioning of an anti-Israel author, Ta-Nehisi Coates, about his latest book “The Message.”Mr. Belloni also reported last week that Mr. Ellison was in talks with the current executive chairman of Sky News in the United Kingdom, David Rhodes, to return to CBS News to run the network once again.James Comey appears on ‘Late Night With Stephen Colbert.’ ParamountMr. Rhodes was in charge of CBS News between 2011 and 2019 and has knowledge of the inner workings of the network, which would likely help him deal with the office politics that have hindered previous executives trying to bring change. A likely concerning portion of Mr. Rhodes’s resume for CBS News employees is his 12 years working at Fox News. Mr. Belloni notes that Mr. Rhodes is seen as a “credible centrist journalism manager.”Whether Mr. Rhodes and Ms. Weiss will be able to succeed where other executives have failed in trying to rein in the network is yet to be seen. However, speculation about dramatic changes at the network went into overdrive last week when CBS announced it is canceling the “The Late Show,” hosted by an anti-Trump comedian, Stephen Colbert. The network said the decision was “purely” a financial one and is “not related in any way to the show’s performance, content, or other matters happening at Paramount.”CBS has also stated that it, and not Skydance — whose executives have no role in decisions at the company yet — chose to cancel Mr. Colbert’s show. CBS News has been denounced by President Trump for its editing of the ’60 Minutes’ interview with Vice President Harris. CBS NewsWhile Mr. Belloni reported that Mr. Colbert’s show is losing roughly $40 million a year, many fans of the comic refused to believe the cancellation had nothing to do with the Skydance merger. A left-wing media reporter, Oliver Darcy, said on his “Power Lines” podcast that it is “literally impossible to detach this from the merger.”Besides the speculation, Mr. Darcy suggested it would be very unlikely that the current executive of CBS, George Cheeks, would make a decision to fire one of the most recognized personalities at the network just weeks before its ownership is expected to change hands. Mr. Darcy said, without providing any conclusive evidence, that the move was approved or asked for by Mr. Ellison. While CBS insists the Colbert decision was its own, the letter from Skydance to the FCC affirming its commitment to “diverse viewpoints” and to “promoting non-discrimination and equal employment opportunity” provides one of the clearest hints yet — besides reports that often cite unnamed individuals — that Mr. Ellison intends to try to take substantive steps to change CBS News’s editorial slant in the name of fairness. The efforts may not end at CBS either, as Paramount has several other subsidiaries, such as Comedy Central, where another anti-Trump late-night host, Jon Stewart, works. After the decision to cancel Mr. Colbert’s show, many in the entertainment industry have questioned whether Mr. Stewart will be the next one to go.

Likely New Owner of Paramount Pledges To Snuff Out Bias at CBS: Lawyer Tells FCC That CBS News Will Practice ‘Unbiased Journalism’

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