CNN chief prescribes calm after staff anxiety over Paramount's expected purchase of parent company

Word had barely spread about Paramount's apparent victory in the competition to buy Warner Bros. Discovery before CNN chief Mark Thompson wrote to staff members. His message, in effect: Keep calm and carry on.

It's a tall order. The network's future — whether familiar faces stay or go, whether the outlet changes editorial direction — will be watched intently if the corporate deal clears regulatory hurdles and goes through. Anxious observers are left to interpret signals from Paramount's management of CBS News for what it could mean at CNN.

“Despite all the speculation you've read during this process, I'd suggest that you don't jump to conclusions until we know more,” Thompson wrote in his internal memo, telling employees to focus on delivering journalism to their customers.

Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav said in a company town hall on Friday that he recognized Paramount's win over Netflix “feels a little whiplashy,” according to CNN's Brian Stelter. Zaslav predicted the deal would take six months to close. Paramount leader David Ellison has not commented on the developments or his plans for the network's future.

But in an already volatile media environment, the trepidation — if not the outcome itself — stands to be seismic.

CNN originated the concept of 24-hour cable news when Ted Turner started it 45 years ago. Its domestic network is less popular now than two rivals who appeal primarily to specific audiences — Fox News to conservatives and MS NOW, formerly MSNBC, to liberals. President Donald Trump is decidedly not a fan, and his criticism of CNN during his first term badly damaged the network's brand among conservatives.

In December, the president said that CNN spread “poison and lies,” adding that “I think the people who have run CNN for the last long period of time are a disgrace. I think it's imperative that CNN be sold.”

Ellison and his billionaire father, Larry, both have ties to Trump. David Ellison sat in the gallery on Tuesday to watch the president deliver his State of the Union address.

Shortly after Paramount took control of CBS News last summer, the company settled a lawsuit filed by Trump against “60 Minutes.” The president, who did not appear on the newsmagazine while running for re-election, sat for an interview last fall, and another on the “CBS Evening News” in January.

Ellison installed a Republican official as a CBS ombudsman to guard against signs of bias, and his work has been publicly invisible. Bari Weiss, an opinion journalist and founder of the Free Press website, became CBS News editor-in-chief, with her moves scrutinized by outsiders for signs that she was moving the network to the right. She has said she wants to appeal to the nation's broad center.

Suspicions by critics fueled the story in December when Weiss ordered a “60 Minutes” story critical of how Trump has deported immigrants held to get more comment from the administration. The story aired a month later.

It's not known whether Ellison will try to merge CBS News and CNN; the idea has been explored a handful of times in the past. The Wall Street Journal reported in December that Ellison assured Trump administration officials that he'd make “sweeping changes” to CNN if he bought it. Paramount did not return calls for comment on Friday.

Trump has, at different junctures, attacked every single host on CNN’s weeknight lineup.

On social media in 2023, he said Erin Burnett reported fake stories about him, suggesting of her show: “Put it to sleep.” He has repeatedly slurred Anderson Cooper, who is gay, by referring to him with a woman’s first name. Earlier this month, he called Kaitlan Collins “the worst reporter” when she asked him about the Epstein files at the White House. Last year, on social media, he called Abby Phillip “strictly 3rd rate."

Only two weeks ago, Cooper decided to leave “60 Minutes,” where he had a job share with CNN, and now he might find himself working with Weiss again.

“Since its founding by Ted Turner in 1980, CNN has provided news that viewers can trust," said Tom Johnson, former network president in the 1990s. "News that is accurate and fair. I truly hope the new CNN owner will maintain its journalistic independence and excellence. I am deeply worried that he will not.”

Despite the concerns, there are dangers in suggesting that CBS News and Paramount are one-note Trump supporters. “60 Minutes,” for example, has continued to do tough stories about administration policies. CBS said it was ending the late-night comedy show of Trump critic Stephen Colbert this May, but Paramount also extended the contracts of Jon Stewart and the “South Park” co-founders on Comedy Central.

Many at CNN had been living in fear for their jobs even before this announcement, said former network correspondent Jim Acosta, who left to start his own online show after sparring with Trump during the president's first administration.

“Trump has cracked the code in how to hurt the media,” Acosta said. “This is bigger than just one company. This is deeply un-American.”

David Bauder writes about the intersection of media and entertainment for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder and https://bsky.app/profile/dbauder.bsky.social.

Paramount Skydance chairman and CEO David Ellison arrives before President Donald Trump delivers the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress in the House chamber at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

FILE - A journalist records video near a CNN sign on an athletic field outside the Clements Recreation Center where the CNN/New York Times will host the Democratic presidential primary debate at Otterbein University, Monday, Oct. 14, 2019, in Westerville, Ohio. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)

Attorney General Pam Bondi announced charges Friday against 30 more people who are accused of civil rights violations in a January protest inside a Minnesota church where a pastor works for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Bondi said on social media that 25 people were in custody and more arrests would follow. The new indictment comes a month after independent journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort and prominent local activist Nekima Levy Armstrong were charged for their alleged roles in the protest at Cities Church in St. Paul.

Bondi accused the group of attacking a house of worship.

"If you do so, you cannot hide from us — we will find you, arrest you, and prosecute you,” she wrote on social media.

In total, 39 people now face charges of conspiracy against religious freedom and interfering with the right of religious freedom.

A livestreamed video posted on Facebook shows people interrupting services at Cities Church on Jan. 18 by chanting “ICE out” and “Justice for Renee Good," a reference to the woman who was fatally shot by an ICE officer in Minneapolis on Jan. 7.

The new defendants will have an initial court appearance and a magistrate judge will set conditions for their likely release. Lemon and Fort said they were at the church as journalists covering news. Levy Armstrong was the subject of a doctored photo posted by the White House showing her crying during her arrest. The three have pleaded not guilty.

Protesters descended on Cities Church after learning that one of the church’s pastors also serves as an ICE official. The protest drew swift condemnation from Trump administration officials and conservative leaders for disrupting a Sunday service.

The indictment says the “agitators” entered the church in a “coordinated takeover-style attack” and engaged in acts of intimidation and obstruction.

“Young children were left to wonder, as one child put it, if their parents were going to die,” the indictment says.

A lawyer for the church praised the Justice Department for charging more people.

“The First Amendment does not give anyone — regardless of profession, prominence, or politics — license to storm a church and intimidate, threaten, and terrorize families and children worshipping inside,” Doug Wardlow said in a statement.

The revised indictment adds new allegations when compared to the original filed in January.

It says two people “conducted reconnaissance” outside the church a day before the protest and recorded their visit on video, with one saying, “My thoughts are to be able to close up this whole alleyway right here.”

The court filing quotes one protester as chanting in the church, “This ain't God's house. This is the house of the devil.”

Levy Armstrong defended the protest shortly after it occurred. She said critics needed to “check their hearts” if they were more concerned about a disruption than the “atrocities that we are experiencing in our community."

The protest came at a tense time in Minnesota, where the Trump administration sent thousands of federal officers for Operation Metro Surge after a series of public fraud cases where the majority of defendants had Somali roots. Officers frequently deployed tear gas for crowd control in neighborhood clashes with residents, often detaining them along with immigrants.

Good, 37, was shot in Minneapolis. In another fatal shooting a week after the church protest, a federal officer killed 37-year-old nurse Alex Pretti.

Nationwide demonstrations erupted in response, followed by a change in Operation Metro Surge’s leadership and the eventual wind-down of the immigration enforcement operation. Roughly 400 ICE officers and Homeland Security agents were expected to remain in Minneapolis by early March, down from roughly 3,000 at the peak, according to a court filing.

Since then, the Twin Cities have grappled with the impact to communities and the local economy. Minneapolis said it suffered an impact of $203 million due to the operation, with tens of thousands of residents in need of urgent relief assistance.

Separately, a woman who was at the church service has filed a lawsuit against some people who were charged, alleging emotional trauma and an inability to exercise her religion that day.

Associated Press writer Ed White in Detroit contributed to this report.

FILE - Cities Church is seen in St. Paul, Minn. where activists shut down a service claiming the pastor was also working as an ICE agent, Monday, Jan. 19, 2026 in St. Paul, Minn. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis, File)