Me and many of us in the Wikipedia Community, and I'm very sure, a big part of the world, have been following very closely the deal between Cable News Network (CNN)'s parent company Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount Skydance, which also owns CBS.^[1]

Networks changing hands aren't out of the ordinary in the American media landscape. However, concerns arising from the consolidation of the media may center on the CEO of Paramount Skydance David Ellison — who already has a bit of an image problem.^[2]

Ellison, is very friendly with the president, Donald Trump. The Wall Street Journal reported that Larry Ellison, his father, told Donald Trump that he could overhaul CNN if the deal passes. Paramount quickly denied the report.^[3][4]

However, after acquiring CBS, David Ellison's overhaul makes the denial much less convincing; he appointed Bari Weiss as the chief editor. Weiss accused the media of having a liberal bias.^[5] Then, Ellison appointed Kenneth R. Weinstein, a former Trump appointee, as Ombudsman of CBS.^[6] Later Weiss, started an overhaul of the legacy journalistic show 60 Minutes, where she fired the news presenter, Scott Pelley, and apparently pressured the 60 Minutes journalists to report on events that never occurred.^[7][8]

Since Paramount Skydance's take over of CBS News, there has been pushback from CBS staff, former employees, and long-time editors.^[9] This pushback involved company layoffs and the 60 Minutes overhaul.^[10][11] This begs the question: Is this a media company where the editorial standards are being changed?

CNN's staff expressed a sense of fear and uncertainty about the deal, and the staff is especially concerned about the network's editorial autonomy. Many leaders in the network said that they will leave if the merger happens, such as CNN's Chief Legal Correspondent Paula Reid.^[12] A big pushback against this, legally, came from several Democratic lawmakers, state attorneys general, and, obviously, freedom and civil rights groups who believe that if the merger happens, it may change Paramount's stance about editorial independence.^[13]

At the moment, yes. The Request for Comment: Reliability of CBS News under Bari Weiss, was somewhat of a rare debate for a very established and used network of source in the Wikipedia. Views are mixed, and there's some grain of salt to take from this discussion that Wikipedians are curious about the issue. It is not easy for an established source like CBS, CNN to be ruled as generally unreliable at any RfC in the Reliable sources Noticeboard for now. There was an earlier RfC on CBS, in which the majority of editors came to a consensus that, CBS has not published fake news, or a fabrication worthy enough to change the reliability. The same consensus that was reached this time. Political and parent company changes aren't new in media industry so, just because management changed hands, it often doesn't mean a change in reliability. (Excluding things like government take-overs). It does not mean forever though. When competition lowers, so does the quality, and standards.

If the network is seen as reliable, it can be assumed that the expansion of the network's parent company, is not a matter of concern. However, the very concern here is on consolidation, an increase in power, and lower levels of competition. Aside from the fact that owning two giant and influential cable networks is already vastly different, it may just take out a big competitor from the market, and that's even worse. Competition is important, even if networks sway away editorially; you, as the network, would have to relatively hold some sort of standards to compete with other networks which people can choose over you. A company that has ties to the government owning networks is not a new thing, but every single time, their main focus is rather erasure of any competition, softening the editorial independence, and normalizing that softness, as there's not anyone to compete against. While the current Paramount or CBS is nowhere near that, we find the recent events very alarming. It's no doubt that, the attitude of the CEO David Ellison and his father, may change after the deal is greenlit; that is not the first time it has happened in something like this, nor will it be the last.

Wikipedia is not a place of original publication, and not a mirror. However, reliable sources and their stances have an effect on how articles are written. When editors write articles, they use the source, how this source represents itself, how strong its bias can also affect the tone of the editor who's heavily influenced by the given source. That's also where Wikipedia's alleged bias comes from; let's say you want to write an article about LGBTQ people, the sources you'll use have a likelihood of being from center, center-right, or mostly left-leaning sources because politically toned media's coverage depends on the topic, that's also why in Wikipedia some articles are accused of a liberal bias much, much more than others, especially topics and events where broadcasters don't cover due to their political alignment, or government fear. Most editors probably wouldn't use Fox News for factual resource, in an article about LGBTQ+, no matter how good the primary source is.

Wikipedians came together to discuss these mounting reports of events that many media outlets reported on in an RfC in July of this year. A lot of users have said that the news was very concerning. However, there was no established sources, or any proof that indicated CBS had fabricated a piece or was consistently, and consecutively broadcasting fake news. A large part of the editors in the RfC have said that it's better to rediscuss this after there's enough evidence or enough time has passed to evaluate the effects of Bari Weiss's tenure at CBS.

The Wikipedia, and in a broader term, Wikipedian's response is to be determined by how and in what way the deal goes, even if the CNN deal doesn't happen, it's unclear what will happen to CBS. In this case, it's a multi-media company who obviously has ties to the government, and it is actively overhauling their editorial stance on that. Wait, did we see this before? Demirören Group from Turkey, and Central European Press and Media Foundation from Hungary, are very similar. One thing is that, this process can be pretty hard to notice, if it's hidden well enough.

However, at the moment, with the Request for Comment: Reliability of CBS News under Bari Weiss in the Reliable sources Noticeboard, ruling as Generally reliable, eyes are now at the CNN deal, and whether the networks "reliable" ruling may come to a change, which would be extraordinary, as the first traditional American mainstream broadcaster to be deemed unreliable.

Now, in the meantime, it won't be wrong to say the CEO, David Ellison and the chief Bari Weiss will be closely watched by the Wikipedian community for the next RfC discussion.