Move over Murdochs, here come the Ellisons

Summary

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Today in Focus: “Move Over Murdochs, Here Come the Ellisons”

Date: April 6, 2026
Host: Helen Pitt (The Guardian)
Guest: Margaret Sullivan (Guardian US Columnist, former Washington Post media columnist)

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Episode Overview

This episode dives into the rapid ascent of Larry and David Ellison as new power players in the American—and increasingly, the global—media landscape. The hosts and guest examine Larry Ellison’s journey from tech billionaire to media mogul, his son David’s parallel rise in entertainment and news, and the political consequences of their growing media empire, especially their relationships with former and current President Donald Trump. The conversation explores the implications of the Ellisons’ acquisition of Paramount (and CBS News), their pending takeover of Warner Bros Discovery (and CNN), and the worrying trend of the consolidation of media power in politically connected hands.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Who Are the Ellisons?

• Larry Ellison: Oracle co-founder, ranked among the top ten wealthiest people globally. Known for his ambition and being unapologetically allied with Trump and right-wing politics.
  • “If you do everything everyone else does in business, you’re going to lose. The only way to get ahead… is to be different.” —Larry Ellison (01:52)
• David Ellison: Eldest son, former "Nepo Baby" actor turned successful film producer (“Top Gun: Maverick”) and, as of last year, CEO of Paramount after his father purchased it.
  • “We want to be in the truth business. We want to be in the trust business. And that’s not going to change.”—David Ellison (02:18)

2. Ellisons Enter Media—The Paramount Takeover

• Larry bought Paramount, bringing CBS News—with its storied past in US journalism—under Ellison control.
• Father and son broadly aim to reshape legacy media, drawing comparisons to the Murdoch family but with even more direct involvement.

3. Ellisons’ Politics & Relationship with Trump

• Larry Ellison has become remarkably close to Donald Trump, with regular meetings (like at Mar-a-Lago) and public joint announcements (such as the $500 billion "Stargate" AI initiative).
  • “We certainly couldn't do this without you. It would simply be impossible. AI holds incredible promise for all of us.” —Larry Ellison to Donald Trump (08:02)
• The closeness is new: though Larry previously donated to Trump, it’s since 2020 (and especially Trump’s second term) that he’s become a key political ally.
• The Ellison media empire, notably CBS News, is accused of aligning editorial stances to be more favorable to Trump.

4. The CBS News Shift: Independence Eroded?

• Margaret Sullivan points to a shift at CBS after the Ellisons’ purchase: settling a Trump-initiated lawsuit over a "60 Minutes" piece on Kamala Harris.
  • “It wasn’t so much that it was an incredibly huge amount of money, but rather that the case was settled and that then Trump was able to run around saying, see, they admitted they were wrong…” —Margaret Sullivan (12:55)
• Comedian Stephen Colbert, commenting on the $16 million settlement:
  • “Now, I believe this kind of complicated financial settlement with a sitting government official has a technical name in legal circles. It’s a big fat bribe…”
    —Stephen Colbert (12:16)
• Following Colbert’s remarks, CBS declined to renew his contract, widely seen as retaliation.

Editorial Shifts After the Takeover:

• David Ellison brought on Bari Weiss (formerly of the New York Times and The Free Press) as Editor-in-Chief, moving CBS News further right.
  • "Bari Weiss… had absolutely no broadcast experience... If you were trying to move CBS News to the right... she would be a perfect choice." —Margaret Sullivan (16:08)
• Key talent, including Anderson Cooper, has left, citing loss of editorial independence.

5. Expansion: Eyeing Warner Bros Discovery and CNN

• The Ellisons are in advanced talks to buy Warner Bros Discovery, which includes CNN, HBO, and other media properties.
  • “If the $110 billion deal goes through, it will make the Ellisons... the most powerful media magnates on the planet.” (03:12)
• Trump has long criticized CNN and would favor its shift rightward under Ellison control.
• Netflix had originally been accepted by the Warner Bros Discovery Board, but a more generous offer from the Ellisons emerged and is likely to win.
• Regulatory hurdles at the federal level appear soft under the Trump administration, though some state-level opposition remains.

6. TikTok Stake: Reaching the Next Generation

• Larry Ellison now owns a 15% stake in TikTok (as of Jan 2026), broadening his influence to social media and youth news consumption.

7. Media Consolidation & Democracy Concerns

• The discussion culminates in concerns about increased consolidation of media power in hands allied with a dominant political figure.
  • “There’s a bigger situation going on here, which is that Donald Trump is trying to control the message. And how do you control the message? You control the media. He’s made huge strides in controlling the media in the U.S.” —Margaret Sullivan (29:15)
• Trump and his appointees have made regulatory threats; the Secretary for War, Pete Hegseth, publicly advocates for Ellison’s takeover of CNN to stop "negative coverage" of the administration's war.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Larry’s Business Philosophy:

  • “If you do everything everyone else does in business, you’re going to lose… to really get ahead is to be different.” —Larry Ellison (01:52)

• On CBS Lawsuit Settlement:

  • “It’s a big fat bribe, because…” —Stephen Colbert (12:16)

• On Bari Weiss’s Editorial Appointment:

  • “If you were trying to move CBS News to the right and make it more appealing to the Trump administration... she would be a perfect choice.” —Margaret Sullivan (16:08)

• On Trump’s Influence:

  • “He’s not shy about telling his supposedly impartial regulatory people what to do, and they seem willing to do it.” —Margaret Sullivan (23:50)

• On Media Control and Democracy:

  • “The first thing those leaders want to do is to diminish the independence of the press. And so I think we’ve seen that happening in a pretty deliberate way over time.” —Margaret Sullivan (29:40)

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Key Timestamps for Important Segments

| Timestamp | Segment / Topic | |-----------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 01:13 | Elon Musk on Larry Ellison’s intellect | | 01:52 | Larry Ellison on business philosophy | | 02:18 | David Ellison on being in the ‘truth and trust business’ | | 03:12 | Paramount purchase, and CNN as the bigger prize | | 04:03 | Introduction of guest Margaret Sullivan; Ellison family background | | 07:29 | Larry and Trump’s relationship and Stargate initiative | | 09:40 | CBS News lawsuit, Ellisons' response, and editorial ramifications | | 12:16 | Stephen Colbert on the settlement (“big fat bribe”) | | 14:41 | How CBS News has changed under Ellison control; Bari Weiss appointment | | 17:28 | Concrete evidence of CBS News shifting right; talent departures | | 19:52 | Ellison’s acquisition of TikTok stake | | 21:16 | The Warner Bros Discovery/CNN deal; battle with Netflix | | 23:27 | CNN staff’s anxiety about coming changes | | 24:52 | Likelihood of CNN being “CBS-ed” | | 28:07 | The global significance and potential effects if Ellison takes CNN | | 29:40 | Broader implications for democracy and press independence | | 31:14 | U.S. defense secretary and FCC supporting pro-Trump coverage and the Ellisons’ media ambitions | | 32:57 | What motivates the Ellisons—power, money, and unimpeded corporate growth |

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Final Thoughts and Implications

The episode paints a detailed, worrying portrait of how immense wealth, media consolidation, and proximity to political power are reshaping the American media landscape. The Ellisons' trajectory—mirroring, but also surpassing, the Murdoch model—threatens journalistic independence at legacy organizations like CBS News and potentially CNN. Their close, mutually advantageous relationship with Donald Trump raises concerns not just for American media diversity but for the press’s basic ability to hold power to account, especially as “reality-based” journalism gives way to editorial manipulation and consolidation in the hands of a politically-aligned few.

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For more, read Margaret Sullivan’s coverage at theguardian.com.
[Summary compiled by Podcast Summarizer AI, maintaining original tone and content fidelity.]

Transcript

[Helen Pitt]

This is the Guardian.

[Narrator/Host]

Today, the billionaire father and son buying up the American media.

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[Helen Pitt]

Who's the smartest guy you've ever met? You hang out with some brilliant people. What's a CEO you look at other than yourself? What CEO do you say?

[Stephen Colbert]

Damn, that guy's good.

[Babbel Advertiser]

Larry Ellison's very smart, so I'll say

[Helen Pitt]

Larry Ellison's one of the smartest people.

[Narrator/Host]

You know that voice. It's Elon Musk. Of course he's talking about Larry Ellison, a tech entrepreneur who at one point last year surpassed him as the world's richest man, thanks to an AI driven boom in the stock price of his software company, Oracle. At 81 years old, you might expect Larry to want to put his feet up, possibly on Lanai, the Hawaiian island he snapped up for $300 million back in 2012. He could be relaxing there with his sixth wife, Jolin, who is 47 years his junior. But retirement isn't Larry's style.

[Larry Ellison]

If you do everything everyone else does in business, you're going to lose. The only way to get ahead, to really get ahead, is to be different.

[Narrator/Host]

Instead, he has decided to become a media mogul. A big one. Huge. The kind that probably makes Rupert Murdoch feel insecure. Unlike Murdoch, Larry likes his children to get involved in the family business. Meet David, his eldest son.

[David Ellison]

And we want to be in the truth business. We want to be in the trust business. And that's not going to change.

[Narrator/Host]

David is a film fanatic who made his first movie, aged just 23, financed with Daddy's money. Obviously. He starred in it too, alongside James Franco. Looking back, we had no idea what to expect. We were a bunch of Americans with nothing in common, except we wanted to learn to fly. It was a flop and David was written off as the ultimate Nepo baby. But after a string of failures, he finally had a hit as a film producer. The top Gun Maverick.

[Donald Trump]

Good morning, Aviators.

[Helen Pitt]

This is your captain speaking.

[Donald Trump]

And we're off. Here we go.

[Narrator/Host]

And then pops brought in Paramount Studios which came with CBS News attached to. And there he's been accused of turning the broadcaster into a pro Trump propaganda machine. Now father and son have their eyes set on Warner Bros. 2. If the $110 billion deal goes through, it will make the Ellisons not just the most powerful movie magnates in Hollywood, but also the most powerful media magnates on the planet. Because with Warner comes cnn, one of the most prestigious news networks in the world. From the gu. Hi, I'm Helen Pitt, Today in Focus. Move over the Murdochs, here come the Ellisons. Margaret Sullivan, welcome back to TODAY in focus. It's nice to see you.

[Helen Pitt]

Thank you. It's very nice to be back with you.

[Narrator/Host]

So you are a columnist for Guardian US with a very storied career. Before you were at the Guardian you were the media columnist, weren't you, for the Washington Post. And obviously we're talking today about the Ellison family and there are probably quite a few of our listeners who haven't actually heard of them in spite of their we will hear enormous influence. Let's start with the patriarch, Larry Ellison. Who is he?

[Helen Pitt]

What Larry Ellison is best known for is being the co founder of the big software company known as Oracle.

[Larry Ellison]

Oracle Autonomous database is 100% self driving. It needs no human intervention and that

[Helen Pitt]

is a huge financial success. And he is one of the very richest people on the planet. I mean sometimes he's like number two or three, I don't know, he might be six right now. It varies. But he's in the top 10. And so he has enormous wealth and he is, I guess I'll use the adjective Trumpy. He's Trumpy. He's a friend and ally, I guess you could say of President Trump. That's kind of the source of the huge money and also of the kind of political leaning.

[Donald Trump]

Well, Larry Ellison's a friend of mine. He's a great guy. I think he's great. He's got a son who's a fantastic young man too.

[Narrator/Host]

And what about David, the eldest of Larry's children? He's the first fruit of the marriage with wife number one. He's the failed actor turned film producer who since last year has been the CEO of Paramount after his dad bought it for him. And Paramount doesn't just make films, does it also does news.

[Helen Pitt]

His son David, who is the CEO of the company which has the name has changed. It's been Paramount, Paramount, Skydance, this and that. That owns CBS News, which, you know, is a talk about storied. A storied news network in the United States that, you know, was the home of Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite, and some of the very best broadcast journalism of an earlier era. And CBS was known as the Tiffany Network because it was the class of the networks in the US So now we have the Ellisons, and it's David in the CEO suite, but certainly his father wielding some influence, having tremendous impact on CBS News.

[Narrator/Host]

So Larry Ellison started out then as a tech entrepreneur, and as you say, that's where he made his enormous wealth. What is he like as a person?

[Larry Ellison]

I think my favorite line is, I had all the disadvantages necessary for success. And I think if it doesn't kill you and makes you stronger. So I've always been very ambitious. I've always been very curious.

[Helen Pitt]

He seems to be someone who's not worried about being involved in politics. You would hope, I guess I would hope, that someone who has so much contact with the media would talk about editorial independence and all of that, but he seems to embrace his right wing politics and certainly has been cozy with Trump.

[Narrator/Host]

Yeah, very cosy. And there have been lots of dinners at Mar A Lago, haven't there? And the day after Trump's inauguration, Larry was at the White House to announce Trump's Stargate initiative, which is a plan to spend $500 billion in AI infrastructure in the US by 2029.

[Donald Trump]

This is, to me, a very big thing. $500 billion Stargate project. I think it's going to be something that's very special. It'll lead to something that could be the biggest of all. So, Larry, maybe we'll start with you and we'll go down the line. Thank you.

[Larry Ellison]

Thank you, Mr. President. We certainly couldn't do this without you. It would simply be impossible. AI holds incredible promise for all of us.

[Narrator/Host]

It's kind of funny watching the video because Larry and Trump seem to share the same hairdresser, or perhaps the same hairpiece maker, dare we say. How far back does that relationship go?

[Helen Pitt]

So Donald Trump has been essentially in power in the United States for the past roughly 10 years. His first campaign was in 2015. And I believe that Larry Ellison was friendly with Trump and was certainly a contributor. But it's only been in the past few years, in the more recent campaign, and now in Trump's second term, which of course was interrupted by that pesky little term of Joe Biden's, that he's really come forward as a political force.

[Narrator/Host]

And is it just a case of donating money to the Trump campaign and the Trump administration, or does it go further than that? In terms of what Larry Ellison has done for and with the White House,

[Helen Pitt]

I think it's largely contributing, but it's also this sort of rubbing elbows, hanging out with, showing up at events and making clear that. That we're on the same side. And that has really exploded, I think, in recent years, and even more so, I would say, in recent months, because as CBS News has been part of a couple now of different media mergers, that has come to the forefront.

[Narrator/Host]

And a lot of the controversy that arose from the Ellison takeover of Paramount had nothing really to do with the film part of the business. But the news side, tell us what happened to CBS with them in charge? How has it changed with Larry and David at the helm?

[Helen Pitt]

I like to track this back to a lawsuit that Donald Trump filed against CBS News before the Ellisons were involved. It happened during the most recent presidential campaign, which feels like it was about 10 years ago, but in fact was in 2024. So 60 Minutes, which is this flagship magazine show, the top rated news show in America, did a pretty standard kind of profile piece on Trump's rival for the presidency, Kamala Harris. And in the course of it, they did what always happens on these shows. They edited it. And that's normal, and in fact, it's necessary. But Trump decided that it was edited. I mean, I don't know if he really believed this or what. I never really know what he's thinking, which might be an okay thing. But he sued CBS News. He sued 60 Minutes for editing that he said was false and misleading and made her sound more cogent than she actually was.

[Donald Trump]

Well, CBS did something that was amazing. Kamala was unable to answer a question properly. And they took the question that they asked and they inserted an answer. They gave her an answer. Nobody's ever heard of anything like this before. And the FCC is looking at it very strongly, and everybody's looking at it, but it probably did affect the election. You know, probably could have won by more, but I could have lost the election because of that.

[Helen Pitt]

And, you know, even though that was an extremely, extremely defensible at it, CBS and its parent company decided to settle that case out of court when they definitely could have fought and won. But they didn't.

[Narrator/Host]

Right? And this settlement, which handed Trump $16 million, came right as the Ellisons were in the process of buying Paramount and merging it with David's Skydance Media company.

[Helen Pitt]

And so, you know, one of the things that happened quickly after that was this late night comic host Stephen Colbert said on his show that he saw that move, that settlement, as, quote, a big fat bribe.

[Stephen Colbert]

Now, I believe this kind of complicated financial settlement with a sitting government official has a technical name in legal circles. It's big fat bribe, because.

[Helen Pitt]

And it did look that way.

[Narrator/Host]

And listeners will probably remember that a few days later, what happens? CBS decides not to renew Colbert's contract.

[Stephen Colbert]

I'm going to go ahead and say it. Cancel culture has gone too far. You may have heard the news. Last week, we learned that the Late show will be ending in May. Over the weekend, it sunk in that they're killing off our show. But they made one mistake. They left me alive.

[Helen Pitt]

It wasn't so much that it was an incredibly huge amount of money, but rather that the case was settled and that then Trump was able to run around saying, see, they. They admitted they were wrong. And that sort of set the tone for other settlements by media companies that have come afterwards. It would have been really great from a First Amendment point of view if CBS News had defended itself in court instead of settling the way it did. So I think that's sort of the. The original sin, if you will. The Ellisons were a part of that. And Paramount, which was at that time the owner of CBS News, was trying to combine with Skydance. Well, how could we do this? We can make sure that, you know, Trump is on our side.

[Narrator/Host]

So while the deal was going through, the Ellison said, right, let's just settle.

[Helen Pitt]

Yeah, before it went through, while it was still, you know, there are people, many people, who think that these big media mergers are inappropriate, someplace between inappropriate and illegal. Because as these companies get bigger and bigger and. And become these conglomerates, there's a question of whether they are monopolies and whether they should be broken up or just not allowed to become huge and huger and huger. So, you know, there could have been regulatory stumbling blocks, but there weren't.

[Narrator/Host]

And which may or may not be related to the $16 million that was given to Donald Trump, who had just returned to the White House at that particular moment.

[Helen Pitt]

I mean, it's. You can't say there was an absolute cause and effect, but you can say what came first and what came second.

[Narrator/Host]

Indeed. And so they do take over Paramount, and that means that they are at the helm of CBS News. The Ellisons, how has it actually changed under their ownership?

[Helen Pitt]

I think the Ellisons have made it clear that they wanted to change the tone of CBS News and the way they would Put it is to appeal to all Americans and to not be left wing anymore.

[Narrator/Host]

And was it left wing?

[Helen Pitt]

No, it was never left wing. These television networks, CBS and NBC and abc, their news products tend to really be very cautious. And they really, in my view, they take it right down the middle, sometimes to a fault. At any rate. It seemed pretty clear that they wanted to move it to the right without saying, we want to move it to the right. What they said was, we want to appeal to all Americans and we want to tell your stories and all of that. That's kind of a cover for what was actually intended, I think, and what has, in fact happened. One of the first things that David Ellison did in his role as head of CBS News was to bring on a new editor in chief. This new editor in chief is a woman named Bari Weiss. And Bari Weiss, interestingly, given that she was now editor in chief of CBS News, had absolutely no broadcast experience. Her experience was as an opinion editor at the New York Times, where she ruffled some feathers and had her own feathers ruffled and left under not very happy circumstances. I mean, of her own accord.

[Narrator/Host]

But unhappily, didn't she essentially say that the New York Times had become too woke?

[Helen Pitt]

Oh, yeah, she didn't want to be a part of it. That's Barry Weiss's big thing is the whole world is way too woke and, you know, too focused on diversity, too interested in all of those kinds of diversity, equity and inclusion issues that have been, you know, such a part of the culture war in recent months and years. So she founded a website called the Free Press. And the Free Press is, while it calls itself a news website, is really an opinion website that is most devoted to anti woke kinds of coverage. Bari Weiss is also a staunch Zionist. And, you know, that is a part of her, you know, where she's coming from. She becomes the editor in chief of CBS News, and I think it can be described as a weird appointment, but if you were trying to move CBS News to the right and make it more appealing to the Trump administration or to right wing politicians, she would be a perfect choice.

[Narrator/Host]

And is there any evidence that under her editorship, CBS has indeed moved to the right?

[Helen Pitt]

Yeah, there's all kinds of evidence. I mean, one of the first things she did was hold back at the 11th hour. I mean, more than the 11th hour, the 55th minute of the 11th hour, a piece that CBS News had been planning to run about a detention facility that was very harsh on migrants that the Trump administration has been putting in detention camps. And so it was El Salvador. Yes, in El Salvador. But the migrants were Venezuelan for the most part. And the piece had been vetted, it had been lawyered, it had been seen by everybody. And in one of her first actions, Bari Weiss comes in and says, no, we're not going to run that right now. I'm postponing it until we can get comment from the Trump administration, which now that's a reasonable thing to do. But there had already been great effort to do that and they hadn't gotten it. So in some ways it seemed like it was just an effort to hold it back. And there was a huge furor over that. The main correspondent, Sharon Alfonsi, said publicly that she felt that that was a politically driven decision and not an editorially driven one. So Bari Weiss came under a lot of criticism for that. And the piece has since appeared without that commentary from the Trump administration. It didn't really make any difference to hold it. And it caused people to say, wow, this is really out of line. It was very unusual. And since then, a number of top people have either left or decided to leave CBS News. And one of them is Anderson Cooper. Anderson Cooper is a, you know, big host on cnn, anchor, and also has been a correspondent and a host for 60 Minutes. And he decided quite recently he's. He's done there. And he said, you know, he wanted to spend more time with his family. I think most people understood that this was. He wasn't happy with the direction that 60 Minutes seemed to be taking. There've been others, some big name, some not so big name that have left. And they've all tended to say the same thing, which is that they felt that editorial independence had been impinged upon.

[Narrator/Host]

And, you know, it's not just legacy media, is it, that the Ellisons are interested in. Larry Ellison, as of January, has a pretty significant stake in TikTok. He has 15% stake, apparently, which cost him around $2 billion. How important do you think that stake is and what sort of influence does it give him?

[Helen Pitt]

When we talk about being able to control the media and control the message, you know, if you talk to young people, TikTok is a way that they're getting their news and it's a hugely.

[Narrator/Host]

Yeah, they're not watching cnn, they're not

[Helen Pitt]

watching cnn, and they're not, certainly not watching CBS News, evening broadcast or even 60 Minutes, that one of the most influential social media platforms is TikTok. And so it makes a lot of sense for Larry Ellison to have formed this consortium that very recently gained A significant hold on TikTok. And I think that that's a sort of a future leaning effort so that it's not just the old stuff, it's also the current and undoubtedly future of media in the US and around the world.

[Stephen Colbert]

Today's CNN breaking news is about cnn. It looks like Paramount is the future owner of CNN and the rest of Warner Brothers Discovery after a months long corporate tug of war.

[Narrator/Host]

So as we've said, a year ago the Ellisons took over Paramount and now they have got their eyes on arguably an even bigger prize, which is Warner Brothers Discovery, another movie studio that does all kinds of other things in addition to making films. But they had big competition to get their hands on Warner Brothers, didn't they?

[Helen Pitt]

The conflict in trying to get Warner Brothers Discovery was between Netflix and Paramount. Skydance.

[Narrator/Host]

Yeah. It was a two horse race at the start, wasn't it?

[Helen Pitt]

Yes. And in fact, the board had accepted the offer from Netflix and it didn't look like Paramount was gonna be able to get it. Now it appears that they will.

[Narrator/Host]

Yeah. And under the Paramount umbrella are a whole host of marquee names like hbo, Discovery, Eurosport, the Cartoon Network, which are all presumably part of the appeal as well as cnn.

[Helen Pitt]

It's mostly not a news company, but they do happen to own cnn. And CNN is a news company that Trump has always, always disliked and always criticized.

[Donald Trump]

They take a story with absolutely nothing that didn't exist and they put it front page news because they want to poison the minds of the voters.

[Helen Pitt]

And there were, you know, when he was running the first time for president, you could hear the chants, chants of CNN sucks because he would set up his followers, the MAGA people, to, to hate cnn. And he has always criticized them. You know, for example, they have a correspondent whose name is Kaitlan Collins, who covers the White House. She's very good, she's very fair. And Trump particularly criticizes and hates her and calls her stupid and all this sort of stuff.

[Donald Trump]

What do you say?

[Helen Pitt]

What would you, what would you say to the survivors who feel they got.

[Donald Trump]

You are the worst reporter no one to see. CNN has no race ratings because of people like you. You know, she's a young woman. I don't think I've ever seen you smile. I've known you for.

[Helen Pitt]

Trump would love to see the same thing happen with CNN that has happened with CBS News.

[Narrator/Host]

Right.

[Helen Pitt]

And there's every reason to think that that is exactly what would happen. So the people at CNN are pretty freaked out because they've seen, you know, now they can see what's happened, and they can see that it. It may very well be coming at them as well.

[Narrator/Host]

And is there any evidence that Trump has helped kind of grease the wheels of this deal so that the Ellisons have ended up the final bidder?

[Helen Pitt]

I mean, look, he's the President of the United States. He's not shy about telling his supposedly impartial regulatory people what to do, and they seem willing to do it. And he's also said he thinks it would be a great idea if CNN were under new ownership and would change. You know, I mean, it's.

[Narrator/Host]

It.

[Helen Pitt]

You don't really have to delve too deeply to know that this is something that he would like, and he and his appointed people are helping it along the way.

[Donald Trump]

I think the people that have run CNN for a long period of time are a disgrace. I think it's imperative that CNN be sold because you certainly wouldn't want to just leave those people with some money, good money, so that, you know, they can spend even more money spreading poison because it's lies.

[Narrator/Host]

David Ellison has insisted that CNN's editorial independence will be maintained. But it sounds like you think that there is a risk that CNN gets cbs, that the same thing that happened there could easily happen to cnn.

[Helen Pitt]

Yeah, I think that what's happened at CBS News could easily happen at cnn. One of the interesting things about the Netflix deal, and probably something that really turned Trump and his people off to it, is that Netflix was planning to spin off CNN into sort of a separate company in a sense, sort of cede editorial control in a way that I think would. You know, I'm not really in favor of these big mergers anyway, but if there were going to be one that would be healthier from an editorial independence point of view.

[Narrator/Host]

And how close is the deal to being done? Are there still a few hurdles that they have to get over in order to form this kind of gargantu which will have such a large slice of the media market?

[Helen Pitt]

Well, the Warner Brothers Discovery Board accepted Netflix's offer, and then this bigger, better, richer one came along. So the board is ready to roll. And there don't seem to be any real hurdles on the federal side for reasons that I've talked about, but there are potentially state rules and regulations in California, for example, that could get in the way. And there are a number of state attorneys general who are making a legal effort to stop it, and that's where it stands right now. If you look at the trajectory, I think it's unlikely that those efforts will be successful. I think the most likely thing is that the Ellisons and Paramount will in fact get their prize that they want and will in fact control cnn.

[Narrator/Host]

Coming up, why Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth wants David Ellison to take over CN.

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[Barclays Investment Bank Analyst]

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[Narrator/Host]

And how significant do you think it will be if the deal goes through?

[Helen Pitt]

I think that it, it will be significant. Now, CNN does not have huge, any more than CBS News did, does not have huge viewership. It doesn't have, for example, the viewership of Fox News owned by the Murdochs. It's not nearly as influential, but it does have a big global reporting presence and one that's really important when there are things like world wars going on or wars that are waging even now, you know, they have correspondents all over the world. So for a lot of people, when something huge happens, like the bombing of Iran, for example, one of the first places they want to go, maybe the first place they want to go is to cnn because they know that's the strength of this company. They cover global events. They have very veteran, well seasoned correspondence. You know, it's hard to imagine that that will continue in exactly the same way under the new regime. I think that CNN will move to the right. Many of its big stars will go away. You'll soon see them on substack and the tone, and the tone will change quite significantly. And that will be something that Trump and his loyalists really want. There's a bigger situation going on here, which is that Donald Trump is trying to control the message. And how do you control the message? You control the media. And he's made huge strides in controlling the media in the US not only at cbs, but also at, for example, the Washington Post, which has changed very radically and moved to the right by threatening all these other news companies with lawsuits. You know, a sort of self censorship sets in and, you know, everybody becomes very, very cautious. And so I think Trump's efforts to control the media, to control the message and to stay in power, I think they're working well for him. It's a powerful force when you have the media on your side. And as you know, when democracies start to become more authoritarian and more autocratic, the first thing those leaders want to do is to diminish the independence of the press. And so I think we've seen that happening in a pretty deliberate way over time. You know, the cries of fake news and you can't believe these people. All of that goes to diminish trust in the sort of what I would call the reality based press. So that's been happening for years. And this is all a piece of that puzzle.

[Narrator/Host]

And we saw Pete Hegseth, the Defense Secretary, or the Secretary for War, as he prefers to be known, recently railing against the media for the negative coverage of the war in Iran. And he said the sooner David Ellison takes over CNN, the better. Make no bones about it. This is what he wants to happen.

[David Ellison]

For decades, Iran has threatened shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. This is always what they do, hold the strait hostage. CNN doesn't think we thought of that. It's a fundamentally unserious report. The sooner David Ellison takes over that network, the better.

[Narrator/Host]

And we saw similar remarks from Carr, the chair of the Federal Communications Commission. He was threatening to remove mainstream news broadcaster licenses if they continue to push what he called hoaxes over America's handling of the war. What do you make of all of this?

[Helen Pitt]

Well, in the case of Hegseth, particularly, it's so wildly inappropriate for the Defense Secretary to be talking about, you know, I mean, he says he wants patriotic coverage. Well, that's not the role of the news media and that's not the role of journalism to sort of say, isn't everything going well and aren't we proud of President Trump? I mean, those literally are the kinds of headlines that he would like to see. On one level, it's shocking. But we also have to remember that Pete Hegseth, a Fox News host, you know, so he's not really qualified in, in any way to be Defense Secretary. And his reason for being there is that he's telegenic and that Trump likes him.

[Narrator/Host]

And what do you think the Ellisons get out of this? I mean, I guess David Ellison gets another studio to play with. He can make more movies. They will have Trump's ear. But what do they gain from having Trump's ear? What could he do for them that would potentially make them even richer?

[Helen Pitt]

Do you think it's about money and power? It's not having any stumbling blocks. When you want to have a bigger, bigger company and have a huge company that has no competition. For example, if you're the head of a huge conglomerate and there's nobody saying, we need to break this up, then it's a free for all. And so I think it's all going in that direction and that's a great end game. My experience, I worked for two billionaires, Warren Buffett back in the day at my local paper that I was the editor of in Buffalo, New York, and then Jeff Bezos. And my observation about these billionaires is that they really like being billionaires. And it's rarely. They don't seem to be able to get outside that and say what would be good for society? And do we need to make sure that the news media is doing its mission of holding power to account? I mean, that is not, that's like, that is a language that is really very foreign.

[Narrator/Host]

Margaret, thank you very much for your time.

[Helen Pitt]

You're welcome. I'm, I'm happy to be here with you.

[Narrator/Host]

That was Margaret Sullivan. You can read all of her [e-mail] and that is all for today. This episode was produced by Hannah Adan, Eli Block and Eleanor Biggs and was presented by me, Helen P. Sound design was by Ross Burns and the executive producers were Elizabeth Cassin and Sammy Kent will be back tomorrow.

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[Barclays Investment Bank Analyst]

innovation sustainability to market volatility. There's always more than one side to a story. Explore different perspectives on today's most important business and economic issues. With the flipside podcast from Barclays Investment Bank. Here too, research analysts in a lively debate and get insights from every angle. To further inform your view. Listen to the flip side on your favorite platform.