Paramount's Cowardly Capitulation To Trump Threatens Journalism

Paramount is selling out journalism to save its purchase by Skydance.

By Ari Paul, FAIR

The media production company Skydance is acquiring Paramount Global. The deal may be thought largely to be an entertainment merger, as Paramount owns Comedy Central, MTV, BET, Nickelodeon, Showtime and the Paramount film studio. But Paramount owns broadcast network CBS and its news programming, which means that the deal has enormous implications for journalism—particularly given that it requires federal approval.

The coast certainly seems clear for the merger at this point: Paramount has settled what is widely regarded as a frivolous lawsuit from President Donald Trump for $16 million over a CBS 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris; it has also canceled its highly successful and long-running Late Show With Stephen Colbert, whose host was critical of the settlement. Meanwhile, Paramount‘s soon-to-be-owner has met with “anti-woke” crusader Bari Weiss about a potential partnership with CBS.

Trump has used his institutional power to attack media he dislikes such as ABC and CBS, as well as to defund liberal-leaning public broadcasters NPR and PBS (FAIR.org, 4/25/25; Variety, 7/18/25; USA Today, 7/18/25). Late last year, Disney settled a similarly ludicrous Trump lawsuit over ABC‘s election coverage (FAIR.org, 12/16/24).

Trump has also used his power to take control of government broadcaster Voice of America, once a Cold War propaganda tool for US power projection abroad, and fill it with content from One America News Network (AP, 5/7/25), a pro-Trump outlet FAIR founder Jeff Cohen once said “makes Fox News sound like Democracy Now!” (FAIR.org, 10/15/21).

The latest moves from CBS‘s owners mark the latest seismic shift to the right in the US media landscape.

Paramount kisses the ring

The lawsuit that Paramount settled to pave the way for the deal preposterously claimed that an interview with Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris on the CBS show 60 Minutes was deceptively edited to favor her over Trump (BBC, 7/2/25). Anyone who cares about journalism or media freedom would have rooted for Paramount and CBS to fight the lawsuit, but Paramount‘s leading stockholder, Shari Redstone, apparently saw the settlement as a small price to keep Trump’s Federal Communications Commission from standing in the way of the lucrative sale. (Trump claims that the combined company has also agreed to air $16 million more in PSAs, described as messages that will “support conservative causes supported by President Trump,” as part of the settlement, though Paramount denies such a side agreement exists—Variety, 7/4/25).

The settlement has been “broadly criticized as capitulation” by CBS staffers (Vanity Fair, 7/2/25). Reuters (7/2/25) reported that one 60 Minutes source said

newsroom staff expressed ‘widespread distress’ about the settlement and concerns about the future of the CBS News prime time news magazine and its hard-hitting brand of journalism.

A filing with the FCC (Deadline, 7/18/25) suggested that an upcoming shift in CBS’s news coverage was part of the deal to get the acquisition approved. It said that Skydance and FCC officials had “discussed Skydance’s commitment to unbiased journalism and its embrace of diverse viewpoints, principles that will ensure CBS’s editorial decision-making reflects the varied ideological perspectives of American viewers.”

Presumably those “varied ideological perspectives” will not include those offensive to Trump, since airing those resulted in Paramount paying a multi-million-dollar settlement. As I previously wrote (FAIR.org, 2/26/25), FCC chair Brendan Carr is a lieutenant in the MAGA movement, and wrote the FCC section for Project 2025, the right-wing policy roadmap for the second Trump administration. While vowing to reduce regulation, he has shown no qualms about using state power to impose ideological limits on broadcast news.

Paramount also promised to install an ombud who would investigate “any complaints of bias or other concerns” at CBS News, and to eliminate all diversity, equity and inclusion programs (Wrap, 7/23/25).

‘Sacrificing free speech to curry favor’

As the deal approached, it became clear that CBS’s ability to operate as a fair news provider was slipping, as Bill Owens, the executive producer of 60 Minutes, “announced his resignation, saying he can no longer make independent journalism decisions for the program” (NPR, 4/23/25). With Colbert’s termination, it’s unclear whether any part of the new Skydance empire will escape ideological purification.

CBS‘s announcement that it would cancel the Late Show With Stephen Colbert has been read as a muzzling of a prominent critic, not just of Trump, but of the Paramount settlement. The Writers Guild of America East (7/18/25) spelled out the authoritarian moment plainly:

On July 15, during a regular show of the Late Show With Stephen Colbert, Colbert went on-air and called the settlement a “big fat bribe” in exchange for a favorable decision on the proposed merger between Paramount and Skydance, a charge currently under investigation in California.

Less than 48 hours later, on July 17, Paramount canceled the Late Show With Stephen Colbert, a show currently performing first in its timeslot, giving vague references to the program’s “financial performance” as the only explanation. For ten years, the show has been one of the most successful, beloved and profitable programs on CBS, entertaining an audience of millions on late night television, on streaming services and across social media.

Given Paramount’s recent capitulation to President Trump in the CBS News lawsuit, the Writers Guild of America has significant concerns that the Late Show’s cancellation is a bribe, sacrificing free speech to curry favor with the Trump administration as the company looks for merger approval.

In its first new episode in over a year, the Comedy Central flagship animated comedy South Park (7/23/25), often embraced by conservatives for its eagerness to offend liberals, attacked both Trump and the channel’s owner Paramount. In its raunchy style,  USA Today (7/24/25) reported, it “referenced everything from the company’s controversial settlement with the president to its shock decision to cancel the Late Show With Stephen Colbert.” Show creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone had previously commented on X (7/2/25), “This merger is a shitshow and it’s fucking up South Park.” It remains to be seen whether the thin-skinned Trump White House will hold up the acquisition in retaliation for the satire.

Trump’s ‘favorite tech company’

There are indications that more ideological restructuring at the network is on its way. CNN (7/11/25) reported that “Paramount’s owner-in-waiting, David Ellison, met with journalist entrepreneur Bari Weiss…about a possible tie-up between CBS News and her startup the Free Press.” The report added that “Ellison is said to be interested in infusing Weiss’s editorial perspective into CBS News.”

For those who are unfamiliar with Weiss, she is a former New York Times editor and writer who gained fame for attacking “wokeness” (Commentary, 11/21)—which for the right is any politics that seeks to address racial and gender inequalities—and her advocacy for Israel and against critics of its government (Intercept, 3/8/18).

While David Ellison donated to former President Joe Biden’s reelection efforts (CNBC, 4/16/24) and other Democratic campaigns, the political commitments of his father Larry Ellison may be more relevant. Larry is the co-founder of the software giant Oracle and, according to the Forbes 400 list, the fourth-richest person in the United States, behind Meta‘s Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon‘s Jeff Bezos and X‘s Elon Musk. As the New York Times (4/2/25) noted, Larry “is putting up most of the $8 billion bid by his son, David, to buy Paramount.”

The elder Ellison is well-known for his contributions to conservative causes (Vox, 2/12/20; Washington Post, 5/20/22). He gave $4 million to a super PAC supporting Marco Rubio’s presidential bid (Politico, 2/20/16), and $15 million to one backing Sen. Tim Scott (R–S.C.) (Politico, 2/19/22).

Slate (9/14/20) called Oracle the “Trump Administration’s Favorite Tech Company,” as evidenced by the fact that Trump picked Oracle to potentially “partner” with TikTok, giving the Chinese-owned social media company a reliable ideological watchdog in order to avoid a congressionally mandated ban (FAIR.org, 12/6/24).

Shared ‘Zionist values’

One thing the Ellisons agree on is wholehearted support for Zionism. In 2017, Larry Ellison gave $16.6 million to the Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces (Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 11/5/17). Two years ago, the Hollywood Reporter (10/13/23) reported that “Skydance Media, led by David Ellison, has committed $1 million to humanitarian relief efforts in Israel” in response to the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack.  It quoted the company:

Skydance stands with Israel, strongly condemns the attacks against its citizens, is donating support to the victims of this tragic act of terrorism, and prays for the safe release of innocents hostages.

Last year, the Jerusalem Post (7/31/24) ran a story “written in cooperation with SkyDance” that highlighted support for Israel by David Ellison and Redstone’s son, “Brandon Korff, heir to the Paramount empire.” The article quoted a “source familiar with the details” who described Ellison and Korff sharing “Zionist values” and noted that “both quietly donate quite a bit to the state of Israel and the IDF.”

Redstone herself has been an outspoken Zionist during her time at the head of Paramount; when CBS admonished host Tony Dokoupil for his hostile interview with author Ta-Nehisi Coates, in which Dokoupil suggested that Coates was an “extremist” on Palestine, Redstone publicly criticized network management (LA Times, 10/9/24).

Given the talks with Weiss and the Free Press, one might expect CBS coverage to skew even further to the right on the Middle East, as well as on the Trump’s administration effort to clamp down on critical speech against Israel’s genocide and its support from the US. While Weiss’s brand is all about free speech, she got her start in politics agitating for the censorship of professors with pro-Palestinian views (Jewish Currents, 7/23/20).