AILSA CHANG, HOST:
The $111 billion deal that Paramount struck to take over Warner Bros. Discovery includes CNN. That has left a lot of questions hanging over the cable news channel. Now, federal regulators have a big say in whether the deal actually goes through. President Trump wants the network sold. Here he was back in December.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I think the people that have run CNN for the last long period of time are a disgrace.
CHANG: Journalists at CNN say that they are fearful for the future. NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik joins us now. Hi, David.
DAVID FOLKENFLIK, BYLINE: Hey, Ailsa.
CHANG: Hey. OK, so just describe in more detail what these fears are inside CNN right now.
FOLKENFLIK: Sure, and let's stipulate. We've talked to half a dozen folks inside CNN in the last 24 hours. They, of course, are speaking on the condition they not be named because they're fearful about job security down the line, and they haven't been authorized to talk about this stuff. But there are two real fears they invoke. And one, I think, it's financial, and it would be regardless of the climate around them. And the second is the question of journalistic independence, and I think that's about the here and now.
So first, let's take the financial question. Think of the role CNN plays. It has a vast array of journalists around the country and a great cadre of journalists around the world. In some ways, its team is unrivaled in American TV news. And they are worried that there may be deep cuts ahead, particularly if they're combined with CBS News, which of course is...
CHANG: Right.
FOLKENFLIK: ...Owned by Paramount right now. If you look at CNN's recent past, they've had a series of owners in recent years, and they've had a series of cuts to deal with their owners' debt. That's been painful. Now let's look at the here and now. The driving force behind Paramount - David Ellison is the CEO there. He is backed by the immense wealth of his father. That's Larry Ellison, the co-founder of the software titan Oracle. And they're allies of President Trump, particularly Larry Ellison, who's a friend and adviser of the president.
And the president has repeatedly made his contempt of CNN known, as we just heard in your introduction and really throughout his presidency and political life. In order to get CBS and to get Paramount, the Ellisons made a series of concessions to the Trump administrations to get passed by their broadcast regulators to get that deal through. And among the things they did was appoint an editor-in-chief, Bari Weiss.
She was the founder of the center-right news site The Free Press, an opinions and news site. But nonetheless, she came aboard with a proposition that the mainstream media is too hostile to conservatives and to the president, and she views CBS in that light as well, and she's trying to reshape it.
CHANG: OK. So you just cited a lot of concerns there. What are the leaders at these institutions - both at CNN and at Paramount - saying to respond to those concerns? Anything?
FOLKENFLIK: Well, at CNN, you've had Mark Thompson. He's the CEO. He says, look, we don't know how this plays out. We don't even know if this gets through certain kinds of government approvals. Let's keep our heads down. Let's do the tough work. CNN has a value. After all, it still makes hundreds of millions of dollars a year in profits. Let's show our worth, and keep doing what we're doing. David Ellison has not, as we're speaking, addressed this specific issue since the announcement of this deal between Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery was struck. But in the past, he's said, look, he's not looking to influence the news division in the way that Bari Weiss's critics say. He's just looking for fairness. And she says that she hasn't experienced any pressure.
CHANG: OK, well, what do you think, David? What does the road ahead look like for this deal?
FOLKENFLIK: Well, you know, look, the cautionary note is there's not a great record for these mega mergers. You've seen a lot of them, including stretching as long ago as a generation involving AOL's takeover of CNN's then-parent company Time Warner. And these things have been loaded with debt, and you've seen sort of fire sales as a result. Warner Bros. Discovery is selling in part because it was loaded with so much debt and couldn't make the numbers work.
And there's the question of the antitrust review. Normally, I'd say this would be extremely rough, an extremely tough thing to do. They've got to pass it here in Europe. California may weigh in. There's some other factors in play. But in today's America, when President Trump has shown such a willingness to interfere in commercial matters, including questions like this, the Ellisons may be right - that they've greased the skids and things can get through more easily.
CHANG: That is NPR's David Folkenflik. Thank you, David.
FOLKENFLIK: You bet. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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