CNN’s Brian Stelter Responds to Reports of Staff Unrest Amid Paramount Merger: ‘It’s Complicated’

CNN’s Chief Media Analyst Brian Stelter responded to reports about staff morale amid the pending Paramount-Warner Bros. merger, calling the situation “complicated.”

Stelter addressed the growing commentary with an X post on Thursday, where he indicated that the portrayal of staff mood wasn’t entirely accurate.

“These stories are always strange to read from the ‘inside’ because, well, it’s complicated,” Stelter wrote. “And if you ask 10 different employees, you’ll hear 10 different POVs about the pending merger.”

For instance, Stelter did not dispute Tom Kludt’s recent New York Magazine report that CNN staffers feared “programming and personnel changes could be driven by politics,” citing Paramount CEO David Ellison’s relationship with the Trump administration. He also didn’t dispute concerns that CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss could take the helm of the news network.

However, he did call Brian Steinberg’s take for Variety, in which he quoted a staffer saying they didn’t “have glimmers of hope” amid the merger, as “just ridiculous.”

“CNN’s parent company has been bought, sold and merged over and over again,” he said. “The news organization has always kept humming along. The word I would add to both NYMag and Variety’s stories is stability.”

He added: “Journalists are nosy and noisy and sometimes hard to manage, but they value stability just like people in every other line of work. Under CNN CEO Mark Thompson, the news organization feels stable. If it becomes unstable, viewers and readers will notice, and that’s ultimately a danger to CNN’s bottom line.”

Stelter then reiterated Thompson’s message from last month, where the executive urged staffers to not “jump to conclusions” about Paramount, adding, “I’ve pointed out many times, there’s a big gap between the perceptions of CBS News and the reality right now.”

Read Stelter’s full commentary below.

Stelter’s message came as Paramount works to close its deal by the September deadline, despite facing a number of hurdles – including approval from European regulators and a possible lawsuit from a group of state AGs.

“Antitrust authorities around the world, including in Australia, Canada, China and the United States, have carefully reviewed this transaction, clearing it or concluding that it does not violate any competition laws,” a Paramount spokesperson told TheWrap in a prior statement. “That regulatory record underscores what the facts, the law and the economics make clear: this transaction will create a stronger challenger to dominant global streaming and technology platforms, expand consumer choice, increase investment in premium content and theatrical distribution, and create more opportunities for creators and workers.”

Still, the Paramount-WBD deal is expected to close by the end of the third quarter. In the event the transaction does not close by Sept. 30, WBD shareholders will receive a 25 cent per share “ticking fee” for each quarter until closing. In the event that the deal does not close at all due to regulatory matters, Paramount will pay WBD a $7 billion termination fee.

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