Paramount-Warner Bros. Merger Spells Bad News for News, Asians in Media
By J. J. Ghosh | 11 Mar, 2026

The biggest media merger in history will impose a rightwing, White-centric perspective on the American population and will likely reduce Asian media representation.

(CNN Video)

Film and TV nerds have closely watched the battle over Warner Bros. Discovery’s ownership play out, wondering how this will affect their favorite content.

When Warner Bros. initially agreed to be sold to Netflix for a staggering $83 billion, the content crossover possibilities became endless. Warner Bros. of course owns DC, HBO, TBS and much more.  Conceivably, we could see a meeting between, say, the royal families of Game of Thrones and Bridgerton.

But just last month, after a brief legal battle, Netflix ultimately backed off and allowed Paramount SkyDance to purchase Warner Bros. for an unprecedented $110 billion, not to mention the $2.8 billion breakup fee that Netflix got as a result of their deal falling through. 

This, of course, ultimately paves the way for a world in which the foul-mouthed South Park gang teams with the hormonal teens from Big Mouth.

"Anti-woke" journalist Bari Weiss is now in charge of CBS News

But admittedly as a huge nerd I was less interested in how this might affect our entertainment options and was more fixated on what this would do to the news media landscape.

And for those who care about news, I’ve got bad news.

The Ellisons

Larry Ellison (L) and son David Ellison (R) are close allies of President Trump

To understand what this merger means for media bias, you have to understand who's behind it.

Paramount SkyDance is led by David Ellison, the son of billionaire Larry Ellison, a close ally of President Donald Trump who owns tech companies like Oracle and, as of earlier this year, has an outsize voice in TikTok US.

One might naturally wonder whether such staunch allies of the President would be inclined to have their newly acquired news companies push a far-right pro-Trump agenda or if Ellison would be able to put his own personal beliefs aside in favor of journalistic objectivity.

If his most recent actions are any indication, it will certainly be the former.

The Ellison-owned company SkyDance officially bought Paramount in August 2025.  But their pro-Trump maneuvering began even before that.  The sale was ultimately dependent on the President's approval, so they wasted no time making it known that the purchase would be directly beneficial for the President.

SkyDance started by writing to the Federal Communications Commission to say that once it merged with Paramount it would undertake a "comprehensive review of CBS,” — the network and news outlet that Paramount owns — and evaluate any potential left wing "bias or other concerns."  They also pledged to end the company's DEI practices. 

The previous owners of Paramount even began taking preemptive actions to ensure that the deal would go through.  Their numerous pro-Trump moves included paying $10 million to Trump for his lawsuit against CBS News despite the lack of any substantial legal basis for the suit and cancelling the Late Show with Stephen Colbert, an outspoken critic of Trump who’s firing the President has himself called for.

The sale was approved and SkyDance wasted no time making good on their pledges: 

They immediately handed over control of CBS News to Bari Weiss, a self-described “anti-woke,” anti-progressive journalist whose stated mission has been to remove from journalism what she believes is a liberal bias. 

The rightward shift was almost instantaneously noticeable, with Weiss’s decision to pull a 60 Minutes segment that was critical of Trump, despite providing practically no justification for the decision to do so.

Other actions have included CBS News anchor Tony Dokoupil explicitly stating his intention to change their coverage approach, CBS News dropping nearly all reporting on climate change, CBS News’s uptick in far-rightwing guests who were more or less welcomed in a friendly manner, and a farewell memo from veteran producer Mary Walsh who declared that under Bari Weiss, “We've been told to aim our reporting at a particular part of the political spectrum.”

CBS News, once the home of veteran journalist Walter Cronkite, has long been a trusted and respected institution with few claims of bias made by non-partisan sources.  Its rightwing shift has been jarring for anyone paying attention.

And it appears that that was just the beginning.   With the Warner Bros. purchase, SkyDance Paramount now owns CNN

The Future of CNN

CNN reached an average of 154 million people every month in 2025, making it one of the most consequential news sources on the planet.

For decades now, there have effectively been three major cable news channels:

Fox News has been well known to have a far right wing bias.  MSNBC while not quite on par with Fox News, has been known to have a liberal bias. And then there’s CNN, which is generally considered independent. 

To be fair CNN has in fact been consistently accused of having an anti-Trump bias… mostly by Trump himself, who has devoted countless hours to blasting the network on social media for their coverage of him.

 For years now the president has made it clear that he wants an end to CNN as we know it.

And according to the Wall Street Journal in 2025, Ellison had given assurances to President Trump that if Paramount were allowed to buy Warner, he would make sweeping changes to CNN.  Some reports allege that CNN and CBS News might be combined into a single entity with Bari Weiss at the helm.

While Ellison has publicly insisted that CNN will maintain its independence, he has said the same thing about CBS.

The likeliest outcome going forward is that two of the top three cable news channels will have a rightwing bias. 

And when it comes to local news, the landscape is no less bleak: 40% of stations are owned by companies Sinclair Broadcast Group, Nexstar Media Group, and Gray television, all of which are owned by Trump supporters.  Sinclair and Nexstar in particular have shown a willingness to demand that their affiliates carry out rightwing mandates. 

More than News

While the news may be my biggest concern with this merger, we do need to remain vigilant about what’s happening beyond the newsrooms and in the writers rooms of the shows and movies titles that Ellison now owns. 

For example, a new Harry Potter TV series is in the works at Warner Bros. And when the cast was announced racists were up in arms over a Black man being cast in the role of Severus Snape, once portrayed by the late White British actor Alan Rickman. 

The idea that these bigots would have their way was once laughable.  But now it feels like a very real possibility that we see fewer minorities on our TV screens on the grounds of “anti-wokeness” which has long felt like a dog whistle for “anti-Black” and other minorities.

Here are just a few of the titles soon to be owned by Ellison that could now be in the crosshairs:

Mission: Impossible, Star Trek, SpongeBob SquarePants, The Godfather, the NFL, Batman, Superman, Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, Looney Tunes, and The Sopranos.

There are more than just TV shows and movies. They’re a major part of the fabric of American culture.

While terrifying, it’s not hard to imagine PSAs in which Superman tells young Americans to enlist to fight in the Iran War or Bugs Bunny endorses JD Vance for President in two years.

Monopolies

This merger should be alarming even for those who don’t care about a rightwing media bias or even shows and movies.  The fact is, one single owner's rightwing perspective is about to be in control of the following companies:

TikTok, CBS, CNN, HBO, Discovery Channel, BET, Cartoon Network, Comedy Central, DC Studios, Fandango, Miramax, MTV, Nickelodeon, Paramount, PlutoTV, Showtime, TBS, The CW, TNT, Warner Bros., and more

Monopolies have historically been awful for everyone besides those in control.  When one company dominates a market — whether it's airlines, pharmaceuticals, or internet providers — prices go up, quality goes down, and consumers lose the ability to vote with their feet. 

The same logic applies here, except the product isn't a plane ticket or a prescription.  It's information and cultural projection.  And the stakes are considerably higher.

The Ellison deal doesn't just consolidate market share.  It consolidates power — editorial, creative, and political — in a way that should concern anyone regardless of party affiliation, viewing habits, or interest in superhero movies.  Former CNN anchor Jim Acosta put it starkly: "As I've been warning, America now has state-compromised media."

Does some of this feel hyperbolic?  Sure.  But then again, it felt hyperbolic in 2024 when Trump’s critics insisted that his second term would include masked federal agents killing American citizens in the streets, the political persecution of Trump’s enemies, crippling tariffs, and war with Iran.

All of these things have happened.  Of course, you may not know that if you get your news from CBS or Fox.