Broadcasting

In Sheep’s Clothing?

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Article in Status by Oliver Darcy 8/12/26

Headline:  “Ellison’s CNN Board Game”

Subhead: “Paramount is floating an oversight board to safeguard CNN’s independence under Ellison ownership—but inside the network, staffers tell Status that they aren’t buying it.”

On Wednesday, by way of The Wall Street Journal, Paramount floated creating an editorial board to oversee CNN. In theory, the board would safeguard the news organization’s independence, should David Ellison be successful in his odyssey to acquire the outlet’s parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery.

Read the full article at:

https://www.status.news/p/cnn-board-david-ellison-paramount

Media Merger Will be Questioned

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Article in Raw Story by Matthew Chapman, 8/11/26

Headline:  ” ‘Be prepared’: MAGA-friendly media giant warned over sketchy merger”

“Democrats are gearing up to grill Paramount Skydance over its blockbuster $110 billion bid to swallow Warner Bros. Discovery — a merger that would put CNN under the thumb of the same MAGA-friendly executive who has overseen the controversial hollowing out of CBS. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.rawstory.com/paramount-skydance/

Pay for NBC News Now?

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Article in Status by Oliver Darcy, 8/10/26

Headline: “The Peacock’s Paywall”

Subhead:  “NBC News once vowed to keep its journalism free, but the news outlet is now putting its exclusive and enterprise reporting behind a digitral paywall — and not everyone inside the company is thrilled, Status has learned

“Last February, NBC News Group boss Cesar Conde announced a major initiative in an internal meeting: a subscription service for NBC News. Until then, NBC News had proudly championed the fact that it made its reporting free. . . ”

Read the full article at:

https://www.status.news/p/nbc-news-paywall-subscription-service

Media Business Flying Without Pilot?

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Article in The Wrap by A. J. Katz, 8/10/26

Headline: “Where the Media Business Is Going”

Subhead: “In this week’s installment of The Media Front, we unpack what happens next as the streaming wars end and AI rises in newsrooms across the country”

“. . .For much of the past decade, Hollywood’s biggest media companies were chasing versions of the same goal: Build a streaming service, add subscribers and reach enough scale to compete with Netflix.

“This week’s earnings season offered perhaps the clearest evidence yet that the industry has moved on. . .”

“What the industry no longer agrees on is what comes next. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.thewrap.com/media-platforms/journalism/future-of-media-business-streaming-ai-news/

So, Who Gets the Megaphone?

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Article in The Bulwark by Sonny Bunch, 8/7/26

Headline:  “The Government Shouldn’t Pick Winners and Losers in Media”

Subhead:  “The real reason to worry about the FCC’s latest move.”

“. . .So, basically: Brendan Carr wants to decide who gets a pass and who doesn’t. . .”

“But really, no government entity should have this power. And I think on some level, most Americans agree with that. It is noxious to American beliefs about freedom of speech and the First Amendment that the government should determine who should or shouldn’t get to own an outlet dedicated to the promulgation of news and opinions and entertainment due to the viewpoints of the owners. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.thebulwark.com/p/the-government-shouldnt-pick-winners-and-losers-in-media-brendan-carr-fcc

FCC Free Speech Threat?

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Article in Free Press by Staff, 8/6/26

Headline:  “Free-Speech Advocates Mark Out Chairman Carr’s History of Censorship as the FCC Convenes Its August Meeting”

“On Thursday, sign-holding volunteers and advocates marked out FCC Chairman Brendan Carr’s disturbing history of censorship outside the entrance to the agency’s Washington headquarters. . .”

“The Corruption Walk exposes the FCC chairman’s role as President Donald Trump’s censorship czar. This shameful history, recounted in a series of 11 signs, details the chairman’s corrupt attempts to silence and bully any media that refuse to bow to Trump’s anti-democratic White House agenda. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.freepress.net/news/free-speech-advocates-mark-out-chairman-carrs-history-censorship-fcc-convenes-its-august

Climate Not Reported?

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Article in Media Matters by Evlondo Cooper, 8/6/26

Headline: “ABC, CBS, and NBC aired nearly 200 segments about three U.S. heat events without mentioning climate change”

Subhead:  “In coverage from June 29 to July 26, national broadcast networks failed to link multiple successive heat waves to global warming”

“From late June through July, successive heat waves swept across large portions of the United States, breaking temperature records and placing more than 100 million people at a time under heat alerts. ABC, CBS, and NBC closely tracked the extreme heat as it moved across the country, repeatedly reporting threatened or broken records and warning viewers about dangerous conditions.

“What the networks did not explain was why these events kept arriving in rapid succession. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.mediamatters.org/broadcast-networks/abc-cbs-and-nbc-aired-nearly-200-segments-about-three-us-heat-events-without

What Will Happen to CNN?

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Article in Poynter by Tom Jones, 8/5/26

Headline:  “Opinion | David Ellison broke months of silence on CNN’s future. His biggest critics won’t be reassured.”

Subhead:  “The Paramount CEO explained his vision for CNN and CBS News in a New York Times essay — but left key concerns unanswered”

“For months, the biggest media story has been Paramount’s attempt to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery for $111 billion. . .”

“There is another concern: that Paramount, which already owns CBS News, would also take control of CNN and, many fear, shift the network to the right because of Paramount CEO David Ellison’s evidently cozy relationship with President Donald Trump. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.poynter.org/commentary/2026/david-ellison-cnn-nyt-op-ed/

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Article in The Hill by Dominick Mastrangelo, 9/5/26

Headline: “Ellison defends Paramount merger, argues he can ‘be trusted as a steward of CNN“

“Media executive David Ellison is defending Paramount’s bid to purchase Warner Brothers Discovery and defending himself against accusations of implementing political bias at his media properties. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://thehill.com/homenews/media/6007503-media-exec-denies-political-bias/

Late Night TV Disappearing?

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Article in AP by Maria Sherman, 8/5/26

Headline:  “Space for music on late-night TV has dwindled. New media seeks to offer an alternative”

“When CBS ended ‘The Late Show With Stephen Colbert’ earlier this year, it also shuttered the program’s robust music offerings — a major blow for artists whose television platform was already dwindling. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://apnews.com/article/late-night-television-musical-performances-55763d0c6170c9b645290582efb4219f

After CECOT – LULAC Begins News

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Article in FAIR by Carolina Abbott Galvão. 8/4/26

Headline: ‘The Most Accurate Truth’

Subhead: “After CBS News hit the brakes on a 60 Minutes story about CECOT prison, the League of Latin American Citizens decided it was time to start their own newsroom. Within months, El Grito Media has become a definitive resource.”

“n July 7 in Houston, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a fifty-two-year-old Mexican man. Audrey Colocho and Katherine Torres of El Grito Media—which this spring started publishing stories directly on Instagram, X, YouTube, and TikTok instead of on a dedicated site—tried to piece together what happened, beginning with a social media post. Soon, they had collected more footage, from more angles—providing a definitive account that became a source for major news outlets. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.cjr.org/getting-the-story/the-most-accurate-truth-el-grito-media-ice-salgado-killing-shooting-cecot-el-salvador-venezuela-60-minutes-cbs-news.php