News

A Serious Threat to the Independence of Media Regulation and News Production 

Author: Rodney Benson

As two of the most popular news brands, CNN and CBS News are major producers and distributors of original news and analysis about public affairs. A consolidation of these two newsrooms under Larry and David Ellison’s growing empire would civically diminish an already struggling news industry. 

In a news media landscape where journalists are losing jobs and more and more communities have little to no access to local news, the Ellisons are a uniquely dangerous type of media owner. Their ties to the Trump administration and their financial entanglements with the government across many sectors have signaled their willingness to capitulate to political pressure. The merger would give the Ellisons ultimate control over the staffing and editorial priorities of two powerhouse news organizations reaching mass and targeted audiences alike. As investors and owners in TikTok and Oracle, with many partnerships with AI data companies, the Ellisons’ ownership of CNN would also give them control over how platforms and algorithms distribute news. In other words, bringing CBS News and CNN under one owner would impact the entire news value chain, which constitutes the cultural and material power to influence public opinion by shaping what become issues of public concern. 

Independent professional journalism plays a crucial role in holding the powerful to account and in providing citizens with the information they need to make informed decisions. A Paramount-Warner Bros. merger would set a dangerous precedent in regulatory policy by favoring a media owner based on their willingness to generate news coverage pleasing to the President of the United States. This merger would also significantly increase concentration in ownership of major professional news outlets and social media, effectively reducing consumer choice and increasing the proportion of political news and information closely tied to the government in power. Given the new owners’ (Larry and David Ellison) extensive technology holdings, especially the software giant Oracle, conflicts of interest would undermine independent, critical news coverage of technology issues including AI. Finally, a merger would likely lead to the elimination of  redundancies in two independent newsrooms, lessening the pluralism of the public sphere and sidelining professional journalists who would otherwise be contributing original public affairs reporting. 

Approving the Merger Sets a Dangerous Precedent of Presidential Interference 

President Trump has long made clear that he wants CNN to be part of the merger, despite its relative lack of economic value compared to Warner Bros.Discovery’s other assets. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, upset with CNN’s coverage of the Iran War, said at a press conference that the “sooner David Ellison takes over that network [CNN], the better.” Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison told Trump administration officials that he would make sweeping changes at CNN if Paramount’s bid were approved. According to reporting in the Wall Street Journal, Paramount Skydance’s dominant shareholder Larry Ellison contributed $45 million to a political nonprofit supporting Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign; he reportedly told Trump the company would “overhaul” CNN if its purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery were approved. According to the same report, both Ellison and Trump are not “fans of the cable news channel, believing it is biased toward liberal news and against the administration.” Larry Ellison also reportedly told White House officials that he would be open to firing CNN anchors that Trump dislikes. The widespread perception that the Ellisons will adopt the “CBS playbook”--hiring new editorial managers more ideologically in sync with the Trump administration and firing journalists who criticize or refuse to comply with these changes—has created a deep unease inside CNN and has already led at least one prominent CNN journalist to not renew their contract. In addition to the danger of politically compromised news coverage (see below), the scarcely veiled presidential politicization of federal regulatory review sets a dangerous precedent for American democracy, undermining public trust in the process and all the parties involved. 

More Media Would Become More Beholden to the Trump Administration 

This merger is not a case of an owner or owners simply exercising their First Amendment rights to express their personal political opinions. The Ellisons face unique political and regulatory pressures because of their companies' structural vulnerability: As owners or would-be owners of media companies subject to regulatory approval and of non-media companies (as with Oracle) heavily dependent on government contracts, they face little choice but to accede to the Trump administration's explicit and implicit demands. Media owners that have tended to capitulate to Trump administration political pressures (settling frivolous lawsuits, appointing Trump-friendly ombudsmen or editors, etc.) differ systematically from the owners who have not capitulated: the difference lies precisely in their degree of dependence or independence from government regulation and contractual business relations. 

Since Larry and David Ellison effectively took over CBS, there have been many staffing decisions made in response to political pressure or designed to curry favor with the Trump administration to secure regulatory approval. Journalists at the storied investigative news show 60 Minutes have accused David Ellison-appointed CBS editorial director Barry Weiss of politically-motivated editorial interference in the program (see also political discourse and diversity sections). Research has shown that both owners and audiences influence the partisan slant of a news outlet. In other words, outlets with left-leaning owners and audiences tend to provide relatively more favorable coverage to left-leaning political actors, while outlets with right-leaning owners and audiences tend to provide relatively more favorable coverage to right-leaning political actors. In addition, partisan intensity—the degree of slant, either to the left or the right—is associated with partisan ownership, whether right or left. 

Given what we know about the Ellisons' close relationship with the Trump administration and the actions they have taken since purchasing Paramount/CBS, we have every reason to expect that their right-leaning views and actions would translate into an enduring pattern of right-leaning partisan slant in news coverage at CNN, should they be allowed to purchase Warner Bros. Discovery. With the Ellisons’ concentrated ownership of both CBS and CNN, there is a significant risk that voices and viewpoints not consistent with their political ideology would be systematically excluded. There are already multiple television news networks with a right-wing slant, such as Fox News, Newsmax, and One America News, and arguably only one that is liberal or left-leaning (MS NOW). This merger would stack the deck in favor of right-wing, pro-administration news presentation

CNN’s cable viewership trails behind MS Now and FOX News, but its digital properties remain top global news destinations and would add substantially to CBS’s audience reach in a combined company. In May of 2026, CNN.com was the second most visited original news website in the U.S., behind NYTimes.com (#1) and ahead of FOXnews.com (#3). 

Digital reach, a snapshot

	Website visits (May, 2026, Gazette Press)	TikTok followers (2026)	YouTube subscribers (June 2026, Social Blade)
CBS News	60.4M (US)84.5M (global, based on top English-language news websites)	12.1M followers	7.0M subscribers (CBSNews)
CNN	227.3M (US) 528.4M (global, based on top English-language news websites)	15.3M followers	19.6M subscribers

Sources: Gazette Press (U.S., global), Social Blade

This Merger Threatens  Independent, Critical Coverage of AI 

If the merger goes through, two of our leading U.S. national news outlets—CNN and CBS—would be under the control of a single family owner. But this is not just any family owner: David Ellison would be running the media companies; his father and the company’s largest investor, Larry Ellison, however, is not just in the media business, but also has effective control of the massive database management and cloud software company Oracle, which provides services that will be increasingly crucial to the growth of AI and a range of other industries. As such, the Ellisons have significant interests at stake in the direction of government policies and awarding of government contracts in relation to AI development, energy and national security/defense policies, government surveillance, and other defining issues of the 21st century. At minimum, because of their owners’ conflicts of interest, a cloud of suspicion would hang over CBS and CNN’s journalists whenever they cover AI and a host of related domestic and foreign policy issues. 

A systematic content analysis of news outlets in the U.S., France, and Sweden found that news media outlets tend to cover businesses associated with their owners more positively than other businesses. This finding is particularly concerning for media outlets whose owners have business interests across a broad swathe of the economy and that are deeply integrated with the U.S. government; this would be the case for CNN and CBS under the Ellisons’ ownership. 

This Merger Would Further Decimate a Profession Already Suffering From Heavy Losses

Since the Ellisons purchased CBS, they have levied two rounds of news division layoffs, with the latter round including the shuttering of CBS News Radio, resulting in the loss of around 160 staff jobs, including many journalists. If the merger goes through, Paramount Skydance has vowed continued investment into CNN’s news operations. Yet given discussions of putting both newsrooms under the direction of CBS editor-in-chief Bari Weiss and Paramount Skydance’s track record so far of reducing staff at CBS, additional cuts at CNN seem likely. CNN already laid off 200 staff in 2025. These cuts compound the loss of tens of thousands of U.S. newsroom jobs –more than 25%–since 2008.