Liberal reporters have a funny habit of touting liberal bias as glorious "editorial independence." When Larry and David Ellison won the bid to take over CNN in February, Washington Post reporters found it sad: "Among power players in politics and media, Paramount’s swoop is also widely viewed as a win for the right amid a broader push to rein in what many conservatives view as a liberal slant in the media and entertainment industries."
On April 5, Post media reporters Scott Nover and Liam Scott turned to a group of CNN staffers -- providing them with anonymity to complain without offending the new owners. How nice of them. Nover tweeted with the "independence" verbiage:
David Ellison has promised to respect CNN’s editorial independence, but its employees worry about political interference and large cuts to personnel. https://t.co/55w1YutZuC
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) April 5, 2026
These anonymous CNN insiders want to maintain their "alleged" liberal slant and the takeover is "fueling anxiety," as the online headline relayed:
What the looming sale of CNN means for Trump’s feud with the network
Animosity from the White House has taken on new meaning amid an imminent sale to David Ellison’s Paramount Skydance, fueling anxiety among journalists.
The Post noted that Team Trump is delighted at the successful Ellison bid, and then turned to CNN's current boss for ridiculous denials about an anti-Trump bias:
“We stand by our journalism,” Thompson wrote in response to the attacks. “Politicians have an obvious motive for claiming that journalism which raises questions about their decisions is false. At CNN our only interest is in telling the truth to our audiences.”
Absolutely no one who watches CNN believes that, especially the people who love the liberal tilt and don't want to see it watered down, like they fear is happening at CBS News.
So we're presented with "several CNN staffers, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, expressed a degree of dread about the sale." They're worried that the bias denials won't continue:
Despite Ellison’s assurances, questions are swirling among some staffers about how long promises of editorial independence will hold. Right now, CNN fires back when attacked, the CNN staffer said, but now “there’s the question in the back of my mind — would we be sending the same statement in eight months or whenever this closes?”
Then came the CBS comparison:
Another CNN staffer said they were more concerned about mismanagement should a new guard — or CBS News’s current leadership — take control. Trump has praised Bari Weiss, the former New York Times opinion writer and critic of “wokeness” who Ellison installed as editor in chief of CBS News. She has clashed with the news network as she attempts to remake the organization in her first six months in charge.
“People at CNN have concerns about competence, even more so than editorial interference,” the staffer said.
Putting "wokeness" in quotes is always amusing. It's easy for journalists to assume "incompetence" of the new managers as they question how the journalistic sausage is made.
Nover and Scott made the obvious point that in the first term, Jeff Zucker was constantly pushing anti-Trump bias.
One former CNN journalist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized by their current employer to comment, noted that in morning editorial meetings at the time, Zucker urged them to be tough. “Often, he would spend the first 10 to 15, maybe even 20 minutes, rallying the troops, talking about how important it was that we investigate things Trump was doing, that we not let up, that we not let things slide,” the reporter said.
Zucker did not respond to a request for comment.
Verbal attacks against journalists became common. “You weren’t covering the White House until somebody there came after you,” said another former CNN reporter. These reporters added that Trump appeared to hold particular disdain for the network.
You don't say!
Nover and Scott equated criticizing CNN with opposing press freedom: "Since 2015, the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker has documented more than 3,500 anti-press social media posts from Trump. Hundreds of them specifically mention CNN."
