Ellison's CNN Board Game
On Wednesday, by way of The Wall Street Journal, Paramount floated creating an editorial board to oversee CNN. In theory, the board would safeguard the news organization’s independence, should David Ellison be successful in his odyssey to acquire the outlet’s parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery. “We always remain open to internal improvements to journalistic integrity,” Paramount told The Journal in a statement.
The concept of an independent editorial board to oversee a news organization is not new. And Ari Emanuel, the TKO boss who is a close business partner of Ellison, first broached the idea while on CNBC earlier this month, suggesting it could be a possible solution “so that everybody’s calm about news and possibly Larry Ellison controlling CNN and CBS.” But until Wednesday, it was not known that Paramount brass was actually mulling the idea.
In any event, if the younger Ellison hoped that the establishment of such a body would quell unease inside CNN over him owning the 46-year-old news organization, he would again be mistaken. Several staffers at the outlet told me…
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