Critics Skeptical of Board Oversight of CNN and CBS News

Paramount has settled lawsuits brought by a coalition of 12 U.S. states seeking to block its $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, agreeing as a condition of the deal to create a news editorial independence board intended to safeguard the editorial autonomy of CBS News and CNN.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced the settlement at a press conference, saying Paramount “must establish a news editorial independence board to support CBS News and CNN’s continued editorial independence to ensure independent, objective, fact-based reporting at CBS News and at CNN.” 

In a legal motion to formally end the case, the companies said the board would “establish guiding editorial and journalism principles for the combined entity’s news channels.”

Bonta,  Newsom, Ellison

Under the terms of the settlement, the five-member board must be established within 180 days of the deal’s closing. It will consist of current or former journalists with at least 10 years of experience each, appointed by the company’s board for three-year terms. The board’s duties include resolving disputes between CBS News or CNN employees and management over alleged violations of editorial principles, reporting bias, or failures to meet agreed fairness standards, as well as establishing and monitoring adherence to ethical journalism practices and editorial independence from the combined company’s ownership and shareholders.

The Guardian reports media figures and company insiders quickly dismissed the plan. Former CNN anchor Jim Acosta said: “There is no way that is going to work. They will start to fire anchors and certain folks to send a message, and the rest will either have to fall in line or leave. This was a colossal mistake.” A CBS News staffer called it “utter garbage.” A CNN producer not authorized to speak publicly said: “I’m happy to hear more about this, but how a board works day to day is tough to wrap my head around.”

Jessica J. González, co-chief executive of the advocacy group Free Press, compared the proposal to Facebook’s oversight board: “As we learned from the failed and widely panned Facebook oversight board, a fake bipartisan oversight committee won’t save CNN. We have all the evidence we need from the Ellisons’ destruction of CBS about what they do to warp journalism at Donald Trump’s request.”