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 loosely defines it.

Never mind that a recent Harris Poll found that 53 percent of Americans believe billionaires like the Ellisons threaten U.S. democracy. The Times Op-Ed is Ellison’s feckless attempt to win popular support for his company’s $111 billion bid to take over Warner Bros. Discovery after suffering a number of setbacks in the courts of law and public opinion.

Building propaganda machines

In a piece titled “The Critics Are Wrong About My Politics,” Ellison wants you to think he’s not a billionaire with a political agenda, but a regular guy — just the man to make news media like CBS and CNN way, way better.

To make his point, Ellison cites his own poll, a Gallup survey finding that only 28 percent of people in the United States trust the news. He’s buying Warner Bros. Discovery to win back that trust for all of us, or so he says. 

Ellison acts as though the low level of public trust in news media “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 correspondent Brian Stelter responds to Ellison’s claim that he regularly votes for candidates of both parties “just like most Americans.” 

“When it comes to our news operations, I do not aspire to lead these companies to bend their newsrooms to my views,” Ellison writes at the Times.

Sure.

But bending newsrooms to conform to the views of a Trump White House is an even greater concern. Stelter presents evidence that Ellison and his underlings have pressured CBS to modify its reporting to satisfy 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, the public has rejected Ellison’s heavy hand at CBS News. Ratings have tanked at the storied network since he appointed conservative blogger 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 writes.

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 Ellison’s editor-in-chief 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 in Trump’s favor reporting on controversial news events, including protests to Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions earlier this year in Minnesota, which led to the murder of Americans Renée Good and Alex Pretti.

‘Palpable dread’ inside CNN 

Ellison clings 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 reports that he had promised Trump — a longtime CNN hater — to clean house there should Paramount take over. 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 after Trump had asked for the favor. 

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

Mission not accomplished

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.

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 shift momentum in his favor, to win over a public that has never bought into the idea that billionaire control of the media is something to be desired.

His effort, courtesy of the Times, has convinced no one. 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 journalists, and cinephiles, and anyone else who believes that democracy won’t long survive a media system controlled by meddling billionaires.

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