Staffers at CNN are melting down as Donald Trump and his cronies get ready to sink their claws into the network the president has openly despised for years.
CNN appears destined for MAGA-friendly waters after Netflix boss Ted Sarandos declared that he was out of a deal to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery, the company that runs the network. This, of course, paves the way for the other bidder: David Ellison, the Paramount Skydance chief who has cozied up to President Donald Trump.
“We are doomed,” one staffer told Status. “We are f---ed,” said another. “Everybody is reeling about the obvious things,” said a third staffer, with the network looking set to get the Bari Weiss treatment.
Weiss, the CBS News editor-in-chief, has steered that network into Trump-friendly territory since taking over late last year. Earlier this month, veteran broadcaster Anderson Cooper cut ties with CBS and 60 Minutes after two decades to escape this particular makeover. The official line was that he wanted to spend more time with family, but sources said he quickly grew weary of the new management.
If Paramount Skydance closes a deal, he’ll be on a collision course with the same higher-ups he fled to avoid. Indeed, one source told NewsNation that this will prove difficult for Cooper to stomach. “This will be messy and uncomfortable if Bari and Anderson are under the same roof again,” the media insider said. “Anderson really doesn’t like her or want to work for her—and he’s the face of the network. For now.”
Cooper will know best what’s to come if the deal goes through, with reports of his frustration down to Weiss’ propensity to MAGA-fy stories and hold back anything she saw as an affront to the sensitive Trump administration.
“The panic at CNN right now is off the charts,” one insider told Status.
Status also obtained a memo sent to staff by chairman and CEO of CNN World Mark Thompson. In it, Thompson wrote that Warner Bros. Discovery boss David Zaslav will hold a town hall on Friday “to discuss the news.”
He added that CNN had penciled in its own town hall to take place “as soon as possible after that to discuss next steps and to answer your questions to the best of our ability.”
Thompson pleaded with employees not to “jump to conclusions about the future until we know more,” and encouraged them to continue “delivering the best possible journalism to the millions of people who rely on us around the world.”
The mood in the Trump camp was jubilant, Status reported. “They think Trump won and they want everyone to know it,” a person familiar with the matter told the media newsletter.
In December, Trump spoke about his disdain for CNN and his hope that it would soon fall under new ownership. “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,” he said. “I think CNN should be sold along with everything.”
The Wall Street Journal reported last year that Ellison, who was at Trump’s State of the Union address earlier this week, had “offered assurances to Trump administration officials that if he bought Warner, he’d make sweeping changes to CNN.” Ellison even said on CNBC last year that he had “great conversations” with Trump about the network’s future.
Another cause for concern is the provenance of some of the funding for the deal: Around $24 billion of Paramount’s takeover financing is coming from the Middle East, including the journalist-killing state of Saudi Arabia.
