Paramount CEO David Ellison says he believes the fight over his Warner Bros. Discovery takeover “is not really about market share” — it’s about CNN.
In a remarkable Tuesday morning guest essay for The New York Times, Ellison seeks to convince readers that he will respect and preserve CNN’s independence.
“In an age when so much of what fills our screens is machine-generated or engineered to enrage, journalism from real reporters matters more than ever,” Ellison writes. “That is the work I intend to pay for, patiently, for a long time.”
The essay comes as Paramount battles twin lawsuits against the merger brought by a coalition of state attorneys general and the Writers Guild of America.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta has said, including in an interview with CNN last month, that the antitrust objections to Paramount–WBD are not about the news network.
