The Paramount-Skydance takeover of Warner Bros Discovery is complete. For approximately $110 billion including debt, the Ellison family now controls CNN, CBS News, HBO, Nickelodeon, Showtime, Comedy Central, DC Studios, Food Network, Paramount Plus, and HBO Max. David Ellison chairs the new Skydance Corporation. His father Larry Ellison, Oracle cofounder, is the deal's major financial backer. The structural problem is plain: the same family that donated roughly $45 million to a Trump-supporting political nonprofit in 2024 and $16.6 million to Friends of the Israel Defense Forces now owns two of America's most prominent newsrooms. Trump himself welcomed the deal on Tuesday. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth previously told reporters that "the sooner David Ellison takes over that network, the better," referring to CNN. The proposed safeguard is a "News Editorial Independence Board" — five members, appointed by Skydance's own board of directors, reporting to the same board Ellison chairs. Two members can share a political party. The board has no requirement to publish its findings. Seth Stern of the Freedom of the Press Foundation called it "worthless," noting that a "Paramount-appointed editorial independence board for CNN and CBS" is structurally incapable of independence from the entity that appoints it. The pattern at CBS offers a preview. After Skydance acquired Paramount in 2025, CBS News Radio was shuttered, correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega were fired, and 60 Minutes executive producer Tanya Simon was removed. The programme's September season premiere drew roughly 21 percent fewer viewers than a year earlier. Paramount paid Trump $16 million to settle a lawsuit over the editing of a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris. A California-led coalition of 12 state attorneys general sued to block the deal, and the Writers Guild of America brought a separate challenge. Both were settled in September with commitments on film production, displaced workers, and news protections. Those commitments did not prevent the CBS firings. Nine advocacy groups including Reporters Without Borders and the Committee for the First Amendment issued a June 2 letter describing the takeover as "an existential threat to the free press, independent media, and free speech in this country and beyond." Sovereign wealth funds from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE hold indirect financial interests in the combined company without voting stakes, adding another layer of financial entanglement to an already compromised ownership structure. Actor Mark Ruffalo warned the merger "will stifle creativity, weaken free speech and cost people their jobs." Senator Elizabeth Warren linked it directly to Trump's efforts to bar CNN reporters from the White House. The deal's logic is industrial consolidation dressed in editorial promises. The editorial board is an accountability theater — a body appointed by the owner, reporting to the owner, with no public transparency obligation. The question is not whether Ellison will interfere with CNN and CBS. The question is what structural mechanism exists to stop him. The answer, as currently designed, is none.
