CNN’s possible sale to Paramount could mark the first real chance in years to replace activism with accountability and steer the network back toward honest journalism.

Last week, Paramount/Skydance signaled interest in purchasing Warner Bros. Discovery, the parent company of CNN, HBO, and some of the most influential media properties in the world.

The Trump team is reportedly enthusiastic. I do not blame them.

For years, conservatives have watched CNN abandon journalism for narrative-driven activism.  There was a brief attempt at course correction after CNN’s post-2016 meltdown, but the leadership reshuffles were temporary and cosmetic. The systemic bias stayed intact. A Paramount-led restructuring could be the first real test of whether that culture can change.

Paramount is now under the effective control of the Ellison family. Larry Ellison has never hidden his views. He has supported conservative causes, hosted major events for President Trump, and personally contributed six-figure support to Trump’s reelection effort.

Under its new leadership, Paramount has already sent strong signals that it understands how deeply broken America’s media ecosystem has become. Just last month, the company made one of the boldest media moves in years by acquiring The Free Press, the independent outlet founded by Bari Weiss, and then promoted Weiss to editor-in-chief of CBS News. In other words, an outspoken critic of ideological conformity in newsrooms is suddenly in the executive chair of one of the biggest broadcast news platforms in America.

Weiss, a former New York Times writer and editor, famously resigned in 2020 after calling out the Times’ blatant political bias. She warned that the media had abandoned the pursuit of truth in favor of tribal orthodoxy. And she criticized the arrogance of a self-appointed enlightened class that dictates reality instead of reporting it.

“The lessons that ought to have followed the [2016] election—lessons about the importance of understanding other Americans, the necessity of resisting tribalism, and the centrality of the free exchange of ideas to a democratic society—have not been learned,” Weiss wrote in her public resignation letter. “Instead, a new consensus has emerged in the press, but perhaps especially at this paper: that truth isn’t a process of collective discovery but an orthodoxy already known to an enlightened few whose job is to inform everyone else.”

By elevating Weiss into its top ranks, Paramount is clearly signaling it wants to rebuild trust. It wants a newsroom culture where dissent isn’t punished and where stories aren’t spiked because they’re politically inconvenient. It wants a newsroom where journalists can question, probe, and report, not simply promote a predetermined ideological script.

If that is the editorial mindset Paramount plans to bring into CNN, then this sale could represent one of the most consequential realignments in modern media.

And realistically speaking, CNN didn’t become the home of anti-Trump hysteria overnight, and it won’t shift its tone overnight either. Buying a newsroom is easy. Reforming its culture is slow, granular, and grueling.

But for the first time in a long time, CNN may fall under owners who do not treat conservative America as backward or disposable. Owners who see the Midwest, the South, and blue-collar America not as an audience to be either lectured to or ignored. Owners who may want a network that is broadly trusted instead of broadly despised.

In a media landscape where Comcast, Netflix, and Amazon dominate the conversation, Paramount’s possible buyout may present a genuine opening for reform. If the Ellison-led Paramount is serious about restoring journalistic balance, and if it imports the same culture shift it just introduced at CBS, then CNN’s future may actually be open rather than predetermined as people assume.

CNN may not turn conservative, but it might finally turn fair and honest.

In today’s media climate, honesty itself would be a revolution.

[H/T American Greatness]