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Tim Graham
Paramount has been cleared to take over Warner Bros.-Discovery and CNN. Alex Griffing at Mediaite reported: David "Ellison, the head of Paramount Skydance, alongside his father, billionaire Larry Ellison, is considered to be a close ally of President Donald Trump, and his potential reshaping of CNN has long been a focus of rampant media speculation."
Translate "rampant speculation" into "perpetual panic."
Those of us who intensely labor to expose left-wing elitist media outlets have pointed out that prolonged exposure to the allegedly ruined "MAGA-friendly" CBS finds very little change in the tone and the topics. They can worry about the future -- after hotheads like Scott Pelley staged a revolt inside ""60 Minutes" and were dropped -- but it's not "CBS Newsmax," no matter what liberals say.
Griffing reported that David Ellison reached out to CNN boss Mark Thompson to encourage him to stay at the helm for now, and that Bari Weiss will not be supervising CNN content. He quoted The Wall Street Journal: "Independence is key for Thompson and he is seeking assurances that he will have wide-ranging autonomy for editorial operations, people close to him said."
"Independence" and "autonomy" can be translated into "freedom to continue liberal bias." Anti-Trump journalists love describing themselves as "independent media," when they sound to Trump-voting Americans like rigidly partisan automatons.
It's surely a smart move to retain Thompson if you're trying to keep the leftists from running to their safe lockers. But the better question is: Why is CNN performing so badly in the ratings compared to Fox, and even MS NOW? From looking at those channels, you could consider shifting to the right, or further to the left.
They could also consider just offering more news reporting and less endless speculation, "news analysis," and arrogant lectures from the hosts. A while ago, we found that only about 20% of the content on CNN, MSNBC and Fox was news reports and live news events. Most of the day seemed more like talk TV.
CNN could become more neutral like NewsNation, but their ratings don't suggest a winning formula, either. Clearly, the cable news channels look like silos because that's the way audience members assemble themselves. They offer a lot of opinion because people like it. So we get the media we deserve.
If you were placing bets, and you've watched CBS this year, you'd bet that CNN won't transform into anything dramatically different. Kaitlan Collins will still throw hardballs at the Republicans at the White House and then offer softballs to Democrats on her prime time show. Gov. J.B. Pritzker can confidently announce Trump has "dementia" with no pushback.
Then there's CNN.com. Giggle at the concept that CNN's Toronto-based "fact checker" Daniel Dale might write an article noting a Democrat lied about anything. First, Dale should be pressed to call his own socialist prime minister in Canada a liar, just to show he's been "ruined" by the Ellisons.
Everyone should remember that CNN touted itself in Trump's first term as the "Facts First" network. This came as they spread a bucket of ridiculous claims about Trump and the Russians from the so-called Steele Dossier. In one week in 2018, we found CNN pushed the ridiculous story 77 times that Trump paid Russian prostitutes to urinate on a bed once allegedly used by the Obamas in Moscow. Is this the kind of classy "journalism" the lefties worry about losing?
Tim Graham is director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and executive editor of the blog NewsBusters.org. To find out more about Tim Graham and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com. Copyright 2026 Creators.com.