CNN star Christiane Amanpour has eviscerated her future boss, blasting billionaire David Ellison’s takeover of CBS News for “hemorrhaging viewers” and threatening the “destruction” of its flagship investigative show 60 Minutes.
The veteran chief international anchor, 68, faces life under Trump-friendly nepo baby Ellison, 43, after Paramount Skydance secured shareholder approval last month for its $111 billion acquisition of CNN’s parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery. The deal, pending a final regulatory review, would hand Ellison, son of Donald Trump megadonor and Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, control of two of America’s biggest newsrooms.
Speaking at the Truth Tellers Sir Harry Evans Investigative Journalism Summit in London, Amanpour, who joined CNN in 1983, said she was watching the takeover unfold with dread.
“Clearly I’m concerned, and I’m not sure how much I’m allowed to say about a corporate thing that’s underway, but I am obviously as a person, as a journalist with a record—yeah, concern. And I’m concerned based on what’s happened. And I’m concerned based on what’s happened to the other things that he’s taken over already, like CBS News.”
Elaborating, Amanpour added, “Do I have to list what’s happening there? I mean, hemorrhaging viewers, probably hemorrhaging money, this ideological realignment of CBS and the destruction, potentially, of 60 Minutes.”
She heaped praise on the storied newsmagazine—a fixture on CBS since 1968—declaring that “nobody can match” it for “doing hard news and cultural news for decades, decades, top rated, top money maker for the network.”
Amanpour said she was hoping for “editorial independence” from her network’s new bosses and insisted CNN’s leadership was “very, very committed to that, clearly, and I don’t think I need to say more than that.”
She also dismissed the idea that Trump’s second term was a ratings cash cow. “I would question the business about Trump ratings boost,” she said. “What’s happening right now is the Iran war, the Venezuela intervention. Actual news events are jacking up our ratings.”
Ellison snapped up Paramount last summer and, within months, had installed anti-woke Free Press founder Bari Weiss, 42, as CBS News editor in chief.
Since then, the Daily Beast has documented her steady rightward shake-up of the network. She pulled a 60 Minutes segment on Trump’s El Salvador deportations hours before it was set to broadcast, killed CBS News Radio after nearly a century on air, ousted the network’s London bureau chief over Iran war coverage, and is reportedly plotting a “bloodbath” overhaul of 60 Minutes itself.
Amanpour invoked CNN’s founding mission, recalling how Ted Turner launched “a media revolution” 46 years ago next month, “precisely to be the sort of man in the middle and not have an agenda and just go and tell the stories from all over the world.”
The Daily Beast has contacted CBS News, David Ellison, and CNN for comment.
