MAGA’s media infiltration is looking likely to hit CNN, after Trump’s buddy and Skydance-Paramount CEO David Ellison squeezed Netflix out of its pending deal to buy Warner Bros, and CNN staffers are dreading what’s to come.
Ellison scored a major win in Paramount’s bid to buy CNN’s parent company on Thursday. The network’s staffers are “devastated,” a source told Variety on Friday, as they fear CNN is doomed for the same fate as CBS, which got a MAGA makeover as soon as Ellison gobbled up the network in his acquisition of Paramount.
“No one is happy,” another insider told the site.
Netflix only intended to acquire Warner Bros. Studios and the company’s HBO streaming assets. Ellison’s bid—which includes funds from the sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Abu Dhabi—is for the company as a whole. The streamer gave up the fight on Thursday after Paramount upped its offer. A third source told Variety that the mood at CNN is filled with dread about the news.
More insiders opened up to Status. “We are doomed,” one staffer told the site. “We are f---ed,” added another, and “Everybody is reeling.”
“The panic at CNN right now is off the charts,” said another source.
When Ellison gained control of CBS, he installed opinion journalist Bari Weiss as Editor-In-Chief of CBS News and acquired her website, The Free Press. Since Weiss took over, she’s shelved a Trump-critical 60 Minutes story, ushered in the resignations of veteran journalists, some of whom cited political bias during their exits, and started a MAGA-friendly Town Hall series. Staffers at CNN aren’t looking forward to a similar shift in tone.
CEO of CNN World Mark Thompson sent a memo to staffers, begging them not to “jump to conclusions about the future until we know more.”
At a Friday town hall, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav tried to soothe internal anxiety. “You can tell that there was a level of sheepishness trying to sell that bigger is better,” one employee told Deadline of the call, on which sources told the site Zaslav said, “We’re the envy of all of the industry,” and buyers were so interested in the company “because of all of you.”
But when it comes to CNN, Trump has been explicit about his disdain. In December, he said, “I don’t think the people that are running that company right now and running CNN—which is a very dishonest group of people—I don’t think that should be allowed to continue. I think CNN should be sold along with everything.”
California’s Attorney General warned that it may be soon for reactions, as “Paramount/Warner Bros is not a done deal,” he told Deadline on Thursday. “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."
