Trust Regular Guy David Ellison with Our Democracy? No Thanks!

The reviews are in. And media critics from coast to coast are rating David Ellison’s New York Times Op-Ed a dud.

Zero stars for the Paramount Skydance CEO who took to the paper of record to convince us everyday Americans that his billionaire touch at CBS and (maybe) CNN will be good for the people and fact-based journalism — as he defines it.

Never mind that a recent Harris Poll found that 53 percent of Americans believe billionaires like the Ellisons threaten U.S. democracy. Or that the Times Op-Ed is Ellison’s desperate attempt to change the narrative about Paramount Skydance’s bid to take over Warner Bros. Discovery — a dangerous amassing of media power that people of every persuasion oppose.

Building propaganda machines

In a piece titled “The Critics Are Wrong About My Politics,” Ellison wants you to think he’s just a regular guy — just the man to make media like CBS and CNN way, way better.

To make his point, Ellison cites his own poll by Gallup, claiming that only 28 percent of people in the United States trust the news.

“And then [he] pretends like that number has something to do with ‘journalists [who] haven’t always helped their case by refusing to engage with critiques,’ and not with members of his cohort turning the networks they own into propaganda machines,” writes The Defector’s Patrick Redford. “Ellison’s proposed solution to that problem is to purge CBS and CNN of journalists who would rather not pretend that vaccine denialism is a valid political position.”

Words vs. reality

At CNN itself, media writer Brian Stelter responds to Ellison’s Times claim that he regularly votes for candidates of both parties “just like most Americans,”and that he ‘[does} not not aspire to lead these companies to bend their newsrooms to my views.” 

But bending newsrooms to conform to the views of a Trump White House is a different matter. Stelter challenges these claims with evidence that Ellison and his underlings have pressured CBS to modify its reporting to satisfy President Trump and his allies. Stelter writes: “While addressing his commitments about news, Ellison makes no mention of Bari Weiss or the upheaval at CBS News. And that’s the main critique I’m hearing about his Times essay: That his actions involving CBS News haven’t matched his reassuring words.”

Indeed, ratings have tanked at CBS News since Ellison appointed conservative blogger Bari Weiss to run the newsroom. “I hear opinions about her from every corner. But I don’t hear anyone making the case that CBS News has earned back a whole lot of trust,” Stelter adds.

Tilting ‘the facts’

Ellison promises to hire journalists who follow the facts wherever they may lead. “Great news” outlets, he writes, should report “straight down the middle …. and that requires independence.”

This is the same guy who had Weiss fire 60 Minutes correspondents, including Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega, who say that Weiss had pressured them to inject right-wing talking points into stories, even though the “suggested” additions were based on conspiracy theories and lies.

At The Los Angeles Times, Meg James writes that Weiss asked CBS journalists to “tilt the presentation of controversial news events, including protests to Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions earlier this year in Minnesota, which led to the deaths of two Americans.”

‘Palpable dread’ inside CNN 

Ellison clings desperately to the notion that this merger isn’t about politics, or that the only people viewing the Paramount takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery through a political lens are the 12 state attorneys general and the Writers Guild of America, which have filed lawsuits challenging the transaction.

“The lawsuits, however, never mention politics, focusing strictly on federal antitrust law and economic harm,” writes Erik Gruenwedel at MediaPlayNews.

Ellison wants us to forget the 2025 news reports that he promised Trump — a longtime hater of CNN — that he’d clean house there. It’s likely he was referring to on-air talent like Kaitlan Collins and Jake Tapper, whose reporting has displeased the president.

According to The Guardian’s Jeremy Barr, Ellison and his father Larry pledged to sway the network in a more Trump-friendly direction, “purportedly to encourage federal regulators to approve the merger.” Elsewhere, reports have indicated a “palpable dread” inside CNN newsrooms should Ellison’s takeover become reality. 

Juicing creativity with G.I. Joe sequels?

Fran Hoepfner at Vulture takes issue with Ellison’s claim that the merger means more creativity and innovation at his movie studios, not less. 

Ellison wrote that he’s doubled Paramount’s cinematic output since he took over, but Hoepfner notes that those films — including “boy movie” sequels like G.I. Joe: Retaliation and Terminator: Dark Fate — are hardly Oscar favorites. And he promised to revive the moldering Rush Hour franchise only because Trump asked him to do so. 

Ellison’s boast to have doubled the number of releases rings hollow when measured against the subpar quality of the resulting films. “David Ellison, name a Paramount movie without a gun in it challenge! Quickly!” Hoepfner writes.

Ellison’s apparent goal with the Op-Ed is to regain momentum for a merger that nobody — except for him, his father, their bought-and-paid-for surrogates and their White House cronies — wants.

In July, Ellison agreed to delay the mega-merger until June 2027 or after the conclusion of a trial the 12 state attorneys general filed in federal court. The judge has now set the trial date for March 2027 but Ellison had hoped to secure approval much sooner to avoid paying billions of dollars in “ticking fees” to Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders.

Everyday people aren’t buying it

The case rests on the AGs’ claim that the merger would violate federal antitrust law, leading to higher prices for film and cable audiences and resulting in fewer movies and TV shows. The combination of these two massive entertainment and news companies would create a media colossus with CBS, CNN, HBO, Nickelodeon and the Warner Bros. and Paramount film studios — among other major media properties — all under one roof.

As a result, Ellison’s merger plans have faced widespread protests led by a coalition of First Amendment advocates, unions, consumer-rights groups and Hollywood actors and directors. Hundreds of thousands of actual everyday people also signed petitions opposing the deal.

For his part, Ellison sees the delay as a chance to win over a public that has never bought into the idea that billionaire control of the media is something to be desired.

People just aren’t having it. And the recent court delay raises serious doubt that the deal will go through. That’s a good thing worthy of praise from critics, and cinephiles, and anyone else who believes that a media free of billionaire control is good for democracy.

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