Skip to content

Bari Weiss CNN takeover in jeopardy as Paramount cools on her

journalismSep 26, 202617867

Paramount boss David Ellison has reportedly cooled on CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss after the CBS News 60 Minutes debacle, putting a planned takeover of CNN by Weiss into doubt, Status founder Oliver Darcy said on the Power Lines podcast. Darcy said the deal that clears Paramount’s Skydance takeover of CNN moved forward this week when a dozen states led by California Attorney General Rob Bonta settled their lawsuit and the merger required no structural changes, leaving CNN inside Paramount. Industry expectations had been that Ellison would install Weiss to run CNN’s editorial operation alongside CBS News and The Free Press, a plan Darcy said motivated Ellison’s purchase and Weiss’s hiring. Darcy added that Paramount has declined to say who will run CNN and that sidelining Weiss would amount to a public vote of no confidence in her CBS News tenure. CNN chief executive Mark Thompson told anxious staffers at a recent town hall that he had few answers about the transition, and CNN employees are braced for Skydance to assume control within weeks. If Ellison keeps Weiss out of a leadership role, Darcy said that would signal Ellison’s diminished enthusiasm for her performance at CBS News.

1 source