‘We Are Doomed’: Fear Grips CNN as Paramount Wins Contest for Warner Bros., Liberal Stars and Producers in Full Panic

Staffers at CNN, along with Democrats and left-wing activists, are fretting as their nightmare scenario of the Ellison-controlled Paramount acquiring Warner Bros. Discovery suddenly appears to be close to coming to fruition. On Thursday evening, WBD said it determined that Paramount’s revised offer was superior to Netflix’s offer, and the streamer chose to walk away from the deal. The news came as a shock to many at CNN, as WBD had agreed to a deal with Netflix and had been pushing back at Paramount’s refusal to back down. The news has also led to new uncertainty at CNN and at Paramount-owned CBS News. Paramount CEO David Ellison’s lawyers pledged that the Tiffany Network would produce unbiased journalism. And the Wall Street Journal reported in December that Ellison “offered assurances to Trump administration officials that if he bought Warner, he’d make sweeping changes to CNN.” President Trump despises CNN and said publicly in recent months that the network needed new management and that he did not support a plan, which was part of the Netflix deal, that CNN and WBD’s other cable networks would be spun off into a new company, similar to what happened to MSNBC. Now, staffers at CNN are expressing concerns that their likely new bosses will try to implement changes to make the network fairer, including potentially firing anti-Trump hosts such as Brianna Keilar and Erin Burnett.A far-left media reporter, Oliver Darcy, who used to work at CNN, wrote in his Status newsletter that one “insider” told him the panic at the network “right now is off the charts.” He added that “within minutes” of the news that Netflix walked out of the deal, “anxious employees” were texting him, expressing their fear that they would be working for the pro-Israel, anti-woke editor-in-chief of CBS News, Bari Weiss. One staffer told him, “We are doomed.” Another said, “We are [expletive].” CNN’s Jake Tapper solemnly reported the news of the deal during his show “The Lead,” saying, “We have some breaking news in our national lead that affects everybody I’m looking at right now in the studio.”The Guardian previously reported that David Ellison’s centibillionaire father, Larry Ellison, had discussed with Mr. Trump ousting some of the CNN stars that he and the president found the most objectionable, namely Ms. Keilar and Ms. Burnett, who have accused Mr. Trump of being a racist and having Nazi tendencies. Many structural changes will likely occur, as it is expected that the expensive newsgathering and back office apparatuses of CBS News and CNN will be merged, leading to massive layoffs at both organizations.CBS News is expected to lose most of its newsgathering apparatus – assignment editors, reporters, field producers, and shooters – as well as its video and graphic production operations. The streaming channel CBSN will likely be shuttered, as will CBSNews.com. The show teams that produce CBS News’ premium programs, along with its anchors and correspondents, will likely survive. CNN will likely see its show teams — which are large for cable news — gutted and many of its correspondents laid off. Its anchor line-up, which industry insiders say are paid three to ten times their value on the open market, is likely to face a choice of an immediate pay cut or a payout and termination. If the deal goes through, it is possible that all CNN units related to diversity, equity, and inclusion will be eliminated. In October, CBS News, which underwent layoffs last fall, all but eliminated its Race and Culture unit, which was created during the “racial reckoning” in 2020 to review the “tone, content, and intention” of stories related to race. The team was different from other race-focused units at other news organizations in that it had a role in screening and passing judgment on content within CBS News.Also gutted was the network’s celebrated climate change unit, which upset liberal activists.When those layoffs were announced, executives at CBS News said they were aimed at “addressing redundancies that have emerged across the organization.”While concerns about the changes — whether aimed at shifting the network’s editorial voice or more straightforward structural changes — erupted at CNN, the network’s chief executive, Mark Thompson, sent a memo to staffers, urging them not to panic.“Despite all the speculation you’ve read during this process, I’d suggest that you don’t jump to conclusions about the future until we know more,” Mr. Thompson said.He urged staffers to “focus on delivering the best possible journalism to the millions of people who rely on us all around the world.”At reliably liberal CBS News, as Variety reported, executives were already planning another round of layoffs that could impact 15 percent of the staff. Indeed, there appears to be apprehension at CBS News as well. A veteran media reporter for the Journal, Joe Flint, wrote on X that a “CBS News source” gave him a two-word response to the news about the WBD deal, “Well [expletive].”The chief executive of WBD, David Zaslav, told employees on Friday that the change of course “all happened very quickly” and that it “feels a little whiplash-y.”He also signaled that there would likely be overlap between CBS News and CNN as he said that staffers at the cable network would have the “opportunity to work with CBS News.”In leaked audio of a call with WBD staffers, Mr. Zaslav also said that the deal “may not close.”“If it doesn’t close, we get $7 billion, and we get back to work,” he said. Paramount has expressed confidence that it will be able to secure the necessary regulatory approvals in America. The Ellison family is seen as close to the Trump Administration.Last spring, Mr. Ellison was seen seated ringside near Mr. Trump at a UFC event. And Mr. Ellison was a guest at the president’s State of the Union address on Tuesday. And Larry Ellison has reportedly had several private meetings with Mr. Trump.However, many Democrats and liberal activists are not keen to see the Paramount deal go through. California’s Democratic attorney general, Rob Bonta, wrote on X, “Paramount/Warner Bros is not a done deal. These two Hollywood titans have not cleared regulatory scrutiny — the California Department of Justice has an open investigation, and we intend to be vigorous in our review.”Senator Chris Murphy implied that Democrats would try to break up the company, writing on X, “Paramount should enjoy its growing news monopoly while they have it because when Democrats win back power, we are going to break up these anti-democratic information conglomerates. All of them.”Senator Elizabeth Warren said in a statement, “A Paramount Skydance-Warner Bros. merger is an antitrust disaster threatening higher prices and fewer choices for American families. What did Trump officials tell the Netflix CEO today at the White House? A handful of Trump-aligned billionaires are trying to seize control of what you watch and charge you whatever price they want. With the cloud of corruption looming over Trump’s Department of Justice, it’ll be up to the American people to speak up and state attorneys general to enforce the law.”A left-wing press freedom organization, the Freedom of the Press Foundation, denounced the Paramount deal. The organization’s head of advocacy, Seth Stern, said in a statement, “Ellison will readily throw the First Amendment, CNN’s reporters, and HBO’s filmmakers under the bus if they stand in the way of expanding his corporate empire and fattening his pockets. But censorship is bad for business.”“Warner executives and shareholders should recognize that selling companies that depend on the First Amendment to a censorial White House puppet is not only morally wrong but harmful to their bottom line,” he said. Despite the concerns that Paramount executives will pressure CBS News, and now likely CNN, to produce conservative content, CNN’s media analyst, Brian Stelter, wrote on X that Ms. Weiss “has told confidants that she hasn’t felt pressure from Paramount to bend CBS News in a politically partisan direction.”Aside from one moment when Ms. Weiss stepped in to temporarily hold a “60 Minutes” story about the Trump Administration’s policy of deporting Venezuelan migrants to a prison in El Salvador — Ms. Weiss said that she felt the story in its current form lacked context and did not include information that would advance the story — CBS News has continued to produce content critical of Mr. Trump without complaints of corporate interference. Despite his intense interest in the future of CNN, by Friday afternoon, Mr. Trump had not publicly commented on the Paramount deal.

‘We Are Doomed’: Fear Grips CNN as Paramount Wins Contest for Warner Bros., Liberal Stars and Producers in Full Panic

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