Netflix dropped its bid to buy Warner Bros. Discovery on Thursday after the company announced Paramount’s latest bid to buy all of its assets, including CNN, was “superior.” The sale to Paramount would put Ellison — who has a close relationship with President Donald Trump and has angered liberals for installing as editor-in-chief of CBS News — in charge of CNN.
“The mood is horrific,” a CNN insider told Fox News Digital. “People are very upset.”
A second CNN insider told Fox News Digital that staffers feel “a mix of despair, apprehension and curiosity.”
“Look, I think this is a place that has gone through a lot. A lot of mergers in the past decade. A lot of fresh starts,” the CNN insider said.
“I think there is an underlying fear of mixing two news divisions,” they continued. “Who is gonna get canned?”
While most corporate mergers of this magnitude come with headcount reductions, many CNN staffers are well aware that CBS News has undergone both layoffs and directional changes since Ellison took over last year. Weiss, who was handpicked by Ellison, has bluntly told staffers they are “not producing a product that enough people want.” She has also taken steps to tamp down the liberal slant that was prominent at CBS News before the Ellison takeover.
Now, CNN may be in the same boat, and the possibility that Weiss will have anything to do with the struggling cable network has spooked staffers, some of whom turned on when he tried to tamp down CNN’s partisanship that marked the Jeff Zucker era.
Shortly after the news of Netflix backing out broke, current CNN CEO sent a memo to staffers announcing an internal town hall “to discuss next steps and to answer your questions to the best of our ability.”
“Despite all the speculation youve read during this process, Id suggest that you dont jump to conclusions about the future until we know more. And secondly lets not forget our duty to our audience,” Thompson wrote in the memo obtained by Fox News Digital.
“Were still near the start of what is already an incredibly newsy year at home and abroad, one that will culminate with critical U.S. midterm elections and who knows what else,” he continued. “Lets continue to focus on delivering the best possible journalism to the millions of people who rely on us all around the world.”
While Thompson did his best to quell concerns, the insider also suggested the possibility of talent fleeing CNN ahead of the Ellison takeover if they can afford it.
A second insider said the two main concerns are “job loss” and “editorial indifference,” noting the former “greatly outranks” the latter. Specifically, CNN staffers worry about a potential “bloodbath” if CBS News and CNN were to merge.
The first CNN insider has grown accustomed to corporate change — CNN has had several corporate parents over the decades, including Time Warner and AT&T — and understands that Ellison wouldn’t formally have control for quite some time if the acquisition goes through.
“It wont close until year end. Maybe longer,” they said. “And between now and then the world will change in major ways. So, when it closes, the lay of the land and their intentions may change … I think its best to reserve judgement and be calm and let it all play out.”
Meanwhile, CNN has largely embraced anti-Trump programming for much of the last decade, and the president has responded by publicly criticizing the network on a regular basis. Last year, The Wall Street Journal reported that Ellison told Trump officials that he’d make
