CBS Chief Walks Back Trump-Praising Pivot Amid Media-Mega Merger Scrutiny

Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison, who has spent months courting Donald Trump, is backtracking as his company’s $111 billion Warner Bros. Discovery–CNN merger faces antitrust lawsuits and political controversy. In a New York Times op-ed he says newsroom decisions will be independent of his politics, even as executive changes at CBS News and a series of high-profile moves (including Bari Weiss’s editor-in-chief appointment and Scott Pelley’s ouster) fuel concerns about political influence in coverage amid the merger.