New Paramount CEO David Ellison said that he had “no interest” in wading “into the political spectrum” with CBS News, as he and other executives addressed the independence of the news division under the new company.At a press conference with media reporters on Thursday, Ellison did not directly answer whether the company would refrain from meddling in 60 Minutes, which was a target of Donald Trump as Skydance and Paramount sought regulatory approval of the transaction.Ellison noted that he started Thursday by meeting with staffers at CBS News and then 60 Minutes, “which hopefully speaks to how important of a part of an organization I believe they are. I’ll also say it is literally day one. I am not going to say we have every single answer.”Also at the press conference was Redbird founder and managing partner Gerry Cardinale, the top investor in the new company, who told reporters that “there’s no way we’re going to try to influence the news, because if you do that, you kill the investment basis. It’s that simple.”Cardinale compared the situation to RedBird’s acquisition of Telegraph Media Group.“Here’s the deal for a guy like me,” he said. “Don’t buy into a news organization, whether it’s broadcast or print, if you want to influence it, because that’s just bad business, right, because the kernel of the entire investment thesis is independence and objectivity. If you can’t get your head around that, don’t buy it.”As part of the FCC approval of the transaction, Skydance agreed to install an ombudsman at CBS News to take complaints over alleged bias and other issues in coverage.But Jeff Shell, the new president of Paramount, said that the CBS News ombudsman will be a “transparency vehicle, not an oversight vehicle.”“We’re not being overseen by the FCC or anybody else, but we do believe in transparency both in the news division and, frankly, in every other business that we’re in.” He said that the ombudsman would be a “transparent process.”“Of course, people from the outside can utilize it, but if it’s internal, it’s mean to be something were [Chair of TV Media] George [Cheeks] and I can work with the leadership of news. If people think there’s bias, or they think there’s things that are done wrong with reporting, to see if something is done or not done, and see if corrective action needs to be taken. So it’s an internal process.”Asked whether he had concern if the ombudsman’s findings on alleged bias would open up the company to an FCC complaint, or the FCC chairman would take action, Shell said, “I don’t think we’ll get to that. I think we want to be fact based and truth based in the news organization. That’s what we’re about. That’s the legacy of CBS. I mean, Edward R. Murrow founded this place, so I don’t think so.” 12-Cheeks said that the ombudsman was “not editorial control. If someone internally or externally has an issue, they take the ombudsman, either Jeff or I can share with CBS News President Tom Cibrowski. They will come back and they will tell us, ‘We agree. We disagree. Here’s why.’ But it’s not, ‘This is what you’re supposed to do.’ That’s how I see it, and I think that’s how they see it as well.”As Paramount executives were meeting with reporters, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr was also holding a press conference, sending the message that he would be watching to see whether the merger leads to changes at CBS. He even warned Paramount executives that they could face consequences if they fall short.“I think we’re in a trust but verify posture at this point,” Carr told reporters. Noting that Skydance-Paramount had committed to viewpoint diversity, he said, “When you make a filing at the FCC, we have rules and regulations that deal with false representations at the agency.”He also noted that the FCC is still reviewing a complaint against CBS News’ 60 Minutes over the way that it edited an interview with Kamala Harris, which was also the subject of Trump’s lawsuit.“So there’s lots of mechanisms still in place where the FCC can make sure that CBS is living up to its commitments,” Carr said.“I’m confident that we’re going to stay in touch with them and sort of track this issue,” he said.Yet the FCC’s authority over news content is very narrow, something that Ajit Pai, FCC chair in Trump’s first term, acknowledged when he was faced with the president’s attacks on the networks. Pai said in 2017 that the FCC “under the law does not have the authority to revoke the license of a broadcast station based on the content of a particular newscast.”Carr seems to embrace the idea that with its commitments, Paramount is now bound by a kind of revived Fairness Doctrine, a defunct policy that mandated that broadcasters reflect a balance of views in news programming. Were he to issue some kind of sanction, he could be challenged on First Amendment grounds, but that hinges on the company willing to do battle with the Trump-controlled FCC.At the Paramount press conference, executives did not comment on reports that they were eyeing journalist Bari Weiss’ The Free Press, the center right news outlet.While the expectation is that the news division will see job cuts, as well the rest of the company, there also have been concerns over the editorial direction of CBS News given its FCC commitments. Ellison paid a visit to CBS News and 60 Minutes earlier on Thursday.Asked at the press conference to cite an examples of bias, Ellison said, “CBS News has an unbelievable legacy, and the way we think about news is really, fundamentally, we want to be in the trust business. We want to be in the truth business. We want to be in the facts business. We really want to look at the 70% of the country that kind of would define themselves as center left to center right, and really ensure that it’s a place that can be true to the legacy that we’re inheriting, and we’re going to invest behind that.”He added, “I don’t want to politicize our company in any way, shape or form. We want to speak to the broadest audience possible.”
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