![]() As I’ve reported, some people in and outside CNN believed there was a direct through line between Malone’s perspective on CNN and Stelter’s departure. Those bells started ringing again last week when the company pushed CNN media reporter Brian Stelter out of his job. Malone’s comments didn’t resonate much beyond a couple of places: At Fox News, which responded with glee, and inside CNN, where they sounded alarm bells. Then he suggested a model: “Fox News, in my opinion, has followed an interesting trajectory of trying to have ‘news’ news, I mean some actual journalism, embedded in a program schedule of all opinions.” “I would like to see CNN evolve back to the kind of journalism that it started with, and actually have journalists, which would be unique and refreshing,” he said. Malone waved away one bit of recurring speculation - that WBD would want to sell CNN - and then offered some programming advice for the new company: One of them was CNN - at the time, owned by AT&T, but scheduled to become part of WBD, a company that Malone would own a piece of along with a seat on its board. In November 2021, Malone sat down for an hour-long interview with CNBC, where he held forth on the state of the pay TV business - where he made his $10 billion fortune - and plenty of other topics. And to shift it toward a supposedly centrist, just-the-facts bent. And his prescription happens to sync with the new CNN agenda: a plan to steer the channel away from what Malone and others call a liberal bias they say muddles opinion and news. ![]() People close to both men insist that Zaslav is remaking CNN because he wants to for both business and editorial reasons, and not because Malone has told him to.īut complicating that narrative is the fact that Malone has repeatedly wished, in public, for CNN to remake itself. That billionaire is John Malone, a legend in the cable TV business and one who has deep and longstanding ties with David Zaslav, the CEO of WBD. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice.
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