David Ellisons confessional in the NYT has Paramount-Skydance WBD merger up in the air
We live in strange times.They’re so strange that when an apolitical media mogul buys a new property and wants to provide more centrist programming — reflecting attitudes of most Americans — he feels compelled to explain himself like a sinner in a confession booth.David Ellison, the CEO of Paramount Skydance, is that “sinner” and if you read his op-ed in The New York Times this week, you can see his confessional for the apostasy of bucking conventional progressive norms in the mainstream media.Because of his offenses against the progressive orthodoxy that dominates news and entertainment, Ellison’s bid to merge PSKY with Warner Bros.
Discovery is now being challenged on antitrust grounds by a dozen loony Democratic US state attorneys general, led by some dude in California that no one heard of until now.Ellison makes the case in his Times op-ed that the only reasons these leftist AGs are suing is politics.They might lose a reliable cheerleader for their progressivism at CNN — the WBD cable news subsidiary Ellison wants to acquire — much the same way Ellison is rewriting the lefty script at the news network he currently controls, CBS.Or as Ellison astutely points out: “The issue is whether I can be trusted as a steward of Warner’s CNN.There has been speculation about my politics, my loyalties, my intentions.”Based on the facts, it’s hard to find fault in his analysis.
First, if you know Ellison, you also know he’s not some right-wing ideologue — a point he tried to drive home in the piece.If you’re even a casual viewer of CBS, you would also know that under his leadership and through his appointment of heterodox though hardly right-wing journalist Bari Weiss to run CBS News, you would also know it’s not now and never will be MAGA central.If you don’t believe it, go back and read some of Weiss’ pieces on the issues.
Yes, she is staunchly pro-Israel and hates all forms of wokeism, but that puts her in line with just about everyon...