The uncertain future of CNN, a target for David Ellison

David Ellison is building the largest entertainment conglomerate in the US. In 2025, his production company, Skydance, acquired Paramount (an $8 billion merger). Ellison is now pushing ahead with the acquisition of Warner Bros-Discovery (an $110 billion merger), which some federal judges and state prosecutors could block on antitrust grounds. But Ellison says that, first and foremost, the real enemies are Netflix and the like, not producers like himself, and secondly that, ultimately, if they try to stop him, it is purely for political reasons. Anyone trying to stand in his way, he says, would only be doing so to preserve the nature of CNN, which is seen as a bulwark against the ‘Make America Great Again’ (MAGA) movement. The all-news channel founded by Ted Turner is, in fact, part of the Warner package that Ellison stands to acquire. Ellison’s closeness to Donald Trump and the fact that his billionaire father, Larry, is a friend and donor to the president, is causing concern amongst Hollywood stars, film unions, Democrats, journalists and non-profit organisations campaigning for freedom of information. So, faced with lawsuits brought by state attorneys general such as those in California, Ellison Jr. sought to reassure everyone, turning to the liberals’ mouthpiece, the New York Times. He wrote an article in which he said that “there has been speculation about my political views, my loyalties and my intentions”, but stop claiming this is an antitrust issue – it’s simply fear that the news you’re used to will change. 

Ellison is convinced that those blocking the takeover do not want to protect cinema – he claims to love it, citing scenes from “E.T.”, “Top Gun” and “Star Wars” – but because anti-Trumpers are terrified that CNN will become a sort of Fox News, where prime-time fact-checkers will be replaced by the president’s plastic-surgery-enhanced sisters-in-law and hard-working reporters will have to talk about the mysterious vandals ruining the reflecting pool at the Lincoln Memorial. “At a time when much of what fills our screens is generated by machines or specifically designed to provoke anger,” Ellison promises, “journalism carried out by real journalists is more important than ever. This is the work I intend to support, patiently, for a long time to come.” But as Brian Stelter, who covers the media world for CNN, pointed out, Ellison had made the same promise when his Skydance took over Paramount and, subsequently, the CBS network. Ellison had appointed Bari Weiss to head up CBS News, and she transformed the network’s former progressive programmes into White House propaganda, scrapping investigative reports that might have undermined the administration’s narrative and sacking the channel’s long-standing presenters. Within a year, by axing comedian Stephen Colbert, CBS has become one of the many ‘TeleTrump’ channels, and everyone knows that the president would like to see the same thing happen to the much-hated CNN, which he considers the worst of all the ‘fake news’ outlets (Trump is said to already have a list of changes and names to be purged). One of Ellison’s partners has proposed setting up an independent and autonomous editorial board, somewhat along the lines of what Rupert Murdoch was forced to do when he bought the Wall Street Journal. For now, the decision rests with the judges, who have accepted the date requested by the prosecutors: March 2027, whilst Ellison would have preferred a verdict by November of this year. But everyone is sceptical about Ellison’s promises regarding journalistic independence, not least because his article makes no mention of Bari Weiss or the transformation of CBS. Trump, on the other hand, at the recent Foreign Correspondents’ Association dinner, insulted CNN journalists and, with a joke, paid tribute to Weiss.