David Ellison thinks people are only mad about the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger over CNN

Certainly, this is a major concern that those protesting the merger have, especially those who have been keeping up with Bari Weiss’ reshaping of CBS News. Weiss’ name doesn’t come up in the op-ed, but he cites the “greatness” of 60 Minutes and brings out a classic Weiss line about how trust in mainstream news is declining. And to those wondering if Ellison is fit to oversee two of the biggest news sources in the country, he offers this:

“I have regularly voted for candidates of both parties; I hold some views that would be called conservative and others that would be called liberal, just like most Americans; and when it comes to our news operations, I do not aspire to lead these companies to bend their newsrooms to my views. I believe that news should be based on facts and truth.”

Ellison doesn’t offer anything substantive about why he should be allowed to have the two huge stations, other than the platitudes that he plans to earn everyone’s trust. Then, hilariously, he asks us to “judge us by the year we just had.” In fairness, he’s saying this with regard to Paramount’s recent Hollywood successes, but judging the company by the year it just had is presumably the major reason people would be concerned about its acquisition of more news outlets. CBS News has seen significant turnover in veteran, highly-respected staff, multiple of whom have alleged that since Weiss’ takeover, they were instructed to change stories to be more amenable to the Trump administration. Beyond that, the network has also reportedly seen dwindling ratings. And, even if the merger doesn’t have an adverse effect on theatrical releases and Hollywood jobs—a dubious claim at best—we would think that the owner of CBS News becoming the owner of CNN would still be enough of a reason to object.