Well, well, well.
Things are interesting in the world of network news, you know?
On the Monday broadcast of her CNN show, Christiane Amanpour dropped a bit of a bombshell - she was leaving.
@amanpour Let me translate... "After 43 years, CNN's new ownership is no longer going to allow me to spew Leftist dribble, so I'm packing up my toys and going home. Cry for me, and tell me how wonderful I am."
— Tennesshero (@Tennesshero) October 19, 2026
Naturally, everyone who is familiar with the merger of Paramount and Warner Bros. (now called Skydance), engineered by the Ellison family, has a pretty good idea about 'the why' - CNN would now be owned by Paramount, which has the dreaded Bari Weiss running their news division. No mystery a hard-core, dedicated lefty like Amanpour would want to bail out in flaming righteous glory. They were just shocked by the timing and the lack of any prior signals from Amanpour that she'd been contemplating exiting the program.
But something has been revealed that makes me wonder if there was even more to it than the terrifying specter of having Weiss as a boss.
It's been sort of a weirdly connected Weiss-week. First Amanpour quits, and then MS NOW's Katy Tur nearly commits a journalism of faintly Zito proportions. How? By actually going to TEXAS and - here is the most horrifying part - talking to TEXANS.
GASP
What was worse was the impression she returned with, which was skeptical that all was as well for Democrats in the Lone Star State as chirpy cheerful noises and polls had been leading the faithful to believe.
The bossman covered the whole in depth this morning, but I want to share her speaking those words with you - that honest appraisal.
EVEN MS NOW’S OWN KATY TUR IS STARTING TO DOUBT THE POLLS! After traveling to Texas, Katy Tur says she has doubts about the midterm polling. WHEN EVEN THE LIBERAL MEDIA STARTS QUESTIONING ITS OWN POLLS, YOU KNOW IT’S TIME TO ASK QUESTIONS! Are the polls missing what’s actually happening on the ground? https://t.co/4Bejhujjh9
— American Nightmare 🇺🇸 (@thewakeninq) October 23, 2026
She's also catching hell from rattled party faithful, desperate to hew to the line, in another, lesser-known recent incident where she dared to point out there are black Republicans.
NO, ALL REPUBLICANS ARE RACISTS - DO BETTER, KATY
I just heard Katy Tur disagree with one of her guests regarding the Republican Party being steeped in racism. She said something about people of color being in the party, blah blah blah. Can someone tell Katy that, having POC in the party doesn't negate racism and that people of color can support White Nationalism, look at Byron and Tim. They are all in. Do better. #DemsUnited
— LanaQuest aka RosaSparks (@LqLana) October 21, 2026
...Can someone tell Katy that, having POC in the party doesn't negate racism and that people of color can support White Nationalism, look at Byron and Tim. They are all in.
Do better.
#DemsUnited
Can you not hear this vile woman's voice saying this in your head?
Dear Lord...and good on Tur for these flashes of rational, decent integrity.
So what does that have to do with Weiss?
Katy Tur is married to CBS Evening News anchor Tony Dokoupil, who, under Bari Weiss's guidance, has done a whale of a job bringing that broadcast back to watchable life again. We like him so much.
He is also a man - a Jew, by the way - who had been pilloried by the prior uberwoke regime at CBS for doing actual journalism. He went toe-to-toe with race-baiting Ta-Nehisi Coates over Israel's right to exist and questioning the Pallywood narrative.
CBS News on Monday rebuked one of its star morning anchors, Tony Dokoupil, over an interview that he conducted last week with the author Ta-Nehisi Coates, in which Mr. Dokoupil challenged Mr. Coates’s views about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Top CBS executives, on a newsroom-wide call, described the interview as falling short of the network’s editorial standards. The executives said their critique had been prompted by internal staff concerns, although at least one veteran CBS journalist said later on the call that she was puzzled over what exactly Mr. Dokoupil had done wrong.
It also sounds as if Jan Crawford was taken to the woodshed for defending Dokoupil.
...Jan Crawford, the chief legal correspondent at CBS News, spoke up later on the call to say she did not understand why Mr. Dokoupil’s questions had not met editorial standards.
“When someone comes on our air with a one-sided account of a very complex situation, as Coates himself acknowledges that he has, it’s my understanding that as journalists we are obligated to challenge that worldview so that our viewers can have that access to the truth or a fuller account,” Ms. Crawford said. “To me, that is what Tony did.”
Ms. Crawford said she was confused as to how CBS correspondents should proceed. “What is the objective standard for the rest of us when we are doing our own interviews?” she asked.
“I appreciate you bringing this up,” Ms. Roark replied. “I know this is a lot for everybody to process.” She said she would follow up with Ms. Crawford after the call.
I have no doubt that interview helped win Dokoupil his anchor chair, and there was a general hissy fit when Weiss awarded it to him. But, as far as we're concerned, it was a stellar decision.
@BonillaJL Liked to died watching it last night. Hubs and I looked at each other with WIDE EYES, 'Did he just SAY THAT?'
— tree hugging sister 🎃 (@WelbornBeege) March 3, 2026
And maybe that unflinching honesty has kind of rubbed off on the missus.
The Weiss-effect seems to be real and is accomplishing amazing things so far.
But word came yesterday of what might have been one more impetus for Amanpour - and perhaps many more in her wake after learning about it - to leave CNN.
Yes, Elon Musk is a stakeholder in the new Skydance venture.
UH-OH
NEW: Elon Musk has made a $1 billion investment in Skydance, the company that owns CNN, according to Semafor. On October 6, Paramount closed the acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, becoming the combined entity Skydance. "We are building a true product and tech team," David Ellison told CNBC earlier this month. "We are a big believer that artificial intelligence is a tool for artists, not the other way around." Skydance is led and controlled by the Ellison family, who are friends of President Trump.
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) October 22, 2026
..."We are building a true product and tech team," David Ellison told CNBC earlier this month.
"We are a big believer that artificial intelligence is a tool for artists, not the other way around."
Skydance is led and controlled by the Ellison family, who are friends of President Trump.
His billion bucks is going to give him an outsized say in the company's direction.
Even more so if a predicted massive investment from Musk's SpaceX comes to fruition as forecast.
Media mogul John Malone predicted SpaceX could invest $8 billion to $10 billion in Skydance, helping David Ellison pay down the company’s growing debt, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Malone pointed to close ties between Elon Musk and Ellison’s father, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, saying he “would not doubt for a minute” that a deal is coming. Read more: https://t.co/W0Z1Vch8um
— Yahoo Finance (@YahooFinance) October 23, 2026
Malone pointed to close ties between Elon Musk and Ellison’s father, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, saying he “would not doubt for a minute” that a deal is coming.
Katy, bar the door.
But to keep the barbarians out or the talent from leaving...hmmmm. That's a tough call.
OH, NO! EVIL MIGHT ONLY CONTROL 95% OF THE PROPAGANDA OUT THERE!
@THR Elon out there destroying misinformation one Democrat entity at a time 😂👏🏿💪🏿✊🏿
— Bob’s your Uncle (@p8riot) October 22, 2026
The billion upfront is only the start, and let the spazzing commence.
...On Thursday came word that Elon would make a (start with?) $1 billion investment in the David Ellison company, according to a Semafor report. This comes after comments Wednesday from John Malone, who suggested (tipped?) that Musk was about to put even more money in via a SpaceX-centric deal with the Ellisons. “I think there’s a deal coming there,” the Liberty Media kingpin told a Paley Center summit earlier this week. “I would not doubt for a minute that before very long you’re going to see an announcement.” Malone was short on specifics but long on dollar amounts: Musk’s buy-in would run between $8-$10 billion. The $1 billion could be just a start.
A lot of the focus here has been on the Ellisons’ need for the money. David and his father Larry, who bankrolled much of the Warner Bros. acquisition, are in the hole for $79 billion, and you can only cut that much staff to make up the difference. A cool $10 bil from Elon, even if not all of it is in cash, takes the bankers’ pressure off you. A chill $1b already helps.
...Owning a piece of Paramount-Warner Bros. (depending on the valuation the $10b could net as much as 15%) would give him a place at the table on the company’s biggest decisions. Even if it doesn’t come with a board seat (that depends on how many voting shares he’d get) it would certainly buy a channel into David Ellison. Musk already has this via Larry, a close business associate who bankrolled the Twitter buy, but writing an eleven-figure check has a funny way of prying open the canal further. And it would give Musk a content pipeline at X, a badly coveted resource. The mogul has tried to make such a push before, with original shows from Don Lemon, Tulsi Gabbard and Jim Rome as part of a Range Media Partners deal, and a plan for WWE mini-episodes.
...But this changes the game for X and Musk much more dramatically. Access to Skydance content makes him more than just a dilettante in the content world — it makes him a streamer.
...If Musk both had a minority stake in two of the biggest studios and was also one of the biggest Internet providers around, he would achieve the kind of pipes-content verticality that no company has ever held in American media and communication, let alone a single person at the head of that company. (Musk holds about 85 percent of the voting shares in SpaceX.) Controlling a stake in HBO and CNN along with the ways we watch it — what could go wrong?
Plenty, of course, starting with the fact that some of the most well-platformed Musk critics, from John Oliver to Jake Tapper, would now be under the thumb of Musk. And he seems like a guy who takes criticism well. Those personalities and others at the old WBD are also among the biggest critics of MAGA and the Republicans — ie, the people Musk is currently shelling out nearly $300 million to keep in power.
They are losing it.
The rest of the rational world, for too long beaten and abused by the progressives in charge of every media outlet on earth, has a sincere case of the giggles.
Elon Musk just invested $1 BILLION in Skydance, the company that bought Warner Bros. Discovery and now controls CNN. I genuinely don’t think today could possibly get any better. 🤣🤣🤣🤣 https://t.co/yA6usydB4b
— Gina Milan (@ginamilan_) October 22, 2026
I mean, wait'll it really sinks in.
Elon Musk arrives at Twitter office carrying sink, sends 'let that sink in' message https://t.co/czDmt4r6Dt https://t.co/7TUL3lG6rh
— Mothership (@MothershipSG) October 27, 2022
Who would have ever thought things could go this way?
