\n CNN\u2019s new owner, David Ellison, says he supports CNN\u2019s legal action against the Trump administration over White House access, and will not interfere in the news organization\u2019s coverage.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cWe believe in editorial independence, and we will never interfere,\u201d Ellison said, reiterating the reassurances he made while seeking to buy Warner Bros. Discovery earlier this year.\n <\/p>\n
\n The merger between Warner and Paramount took effect on Tuesday morning, and Ellison held an employee town hall to introduce the newly combined company, named Skydance.\n <\/p>\n
\n Ellison, the CEO of Skydance, laid out his vision for investing in films, shows and new technology.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cFor the first time,\u201d he said, \u201cwe have the studios, the franchises, the libraries, the talent and scale all under one roof to compete with anyone in the world.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n CNN anchor Anderson Cooper interviewed Ellison at the town hall and asked directly about CNN employees\u2019 concerns about Skydance\u2019s ownership.\n <\/p>\n
\n In response, Ellison said, \u201cI believe deeply in journalism,\u201d and went on to call the work done by CBS News and CNN \u201ca vital part of our democracy.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n While speaking about the need for fact-based news, Ellison said, \u201cYou go back to what President Obama said during the pandemic. He said a republic that can\u2019t agree on the same set of facts can\u2019t function, and I think he was 100% right about that.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n In the news space, \u201cwe want to actually help scale and transition the business digitally,\u201d Ellison said.\n <\/p>\n
\n He emphasized the importance of growing CNN\u2019s digital operations and reaching new audiences worldwide, citing Skydance\u2019s estimate that the combined company reaches more than 200 million streaming subscribers.\n <\/p>\n
\n The newly formed company, he said, \u201ccan create an even bigger platform for the best journalism in the world.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n The Ellison family\u2019s ties to President Donald Trump had fueled concerns among CNN employees about the network\u2019s independence.\n <\/p>\n
\n Last fall, Trump described Ellison and his father, the billionaire Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, as \u201cfriends of mine\u201d and \u201cbig supporters of mine.\u201d Last December, Trump said \u201cit\u2019s imperative that CNN be sold\u201d to new owners.\n <\/p>\n
\n Asked about the merger by a reporter on Tuesday afternoon, Trump said, \u201cIt\u2019s going to be a great company. They\u2019re terrific people, and it\u2019s going to be a great company.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n At the Skydance town hall, Cooper asked a follow-up question about CNN, MS NOW and Politico\u2019s First Amendment lawsuit over Trump\u2019s recent attempt to ban the three news outlets from the White House.\n <\/p>\n
\n Cooper asked, \u201cDo you stand with CNN and our effort to completely restore access to covering President Trump?\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cOf course,\u201d Ellison said.\n <\/p>\n
\n The next hearing in the legal case is slated for Thursday morning.\n <\/p>\n
\n Both CNN chairman and editor-in-chief Mark Thompson and CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss attended the town hall. The two news operations are operating separately for now.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cWe trust Mark, we trust the team,\u201d Ellison said while speaking about CNN.\n <\/p>\n
\n Later on, Cooper asked about the likelihood of a tie-up between CBS and CNN in the future: \u201cIf Paramount and Warner Brothers are now cousins, and CBS News and CNN are cousins, when does somebody start to ask them to share organs?\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt\u2019s day one,\u201d Ellison said.\n <\/p>\n
\n He said he intends to bring the relevant business leaders \u201cinto the decision-making\u201d now that the deal has taken effect.\n <\/p>\n
\n Generally speaking, companies will start making integration decisions \u201cwithin usually 120 days,\u201d Ellison said, \u201cbut I think it\u2019s foolish to try to say I\u2019m going to show up with every single answer today.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CNN\u2019s new owner, David Ellison, says he supports CNN\u2019s legal action against the Trump administration over White House…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":873374,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[28],"class_list":["post-873373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=873373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/873374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=873373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=873373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=873373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}