Poynter is reporting that Paramount CEO David Ellison has asked Mark Thompson to stay on as the head of CNN once Paramount's acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery is finalized. It said the deal, which would bring CNN and CBS News under the same corporate umbrella, is expected to close next week.

Poynter said The Wall Street Journal's Joe Flint reported that nothing is finalized, but that Ellison wants Thompson to remain. It said The New York Times reported that an agreement may not be reached, but that such an arrangement would likely ease concerns among critics who feared Ellison would quickly make significant changes at the 24-hour cable network.

Poynter said the news came as a surprise to some who assumed Bari Weiss, Ellison's hand-picked editor-in-chief of CBS News, would also be put in charge of CNN after the merger. It said Flint reported that Weiss is not expected to have a role involving CNN at the close of the deal, and that Ellison is not expected to name a single news chief overseeing both operations when he lays out the combined company's organizational structure in the coming days.

Poynter said reports indicate Thompson, who took over at CNN in 2023, would insist on editorial independence for the network in order to stay. It said Deadline reported that under Thompson, CNN has continued to aggressively cover the Trump administration and has sued the president after he banned the network and two other outlets from White House grounds.

Poynter said The Los Angeles Times reported that CNN and CBS News are expected to consolidate some operations, such as overseas bureaus, and that Thompson would likely face the task of reducing costs as traditional TV audiences shrink. It said Flint noted that combining the two news organizations would be complicated by different business models, newsroom cultures and labor structures, since most CBS News employees work under union contracts while CNN is largely nonunion.

Separately, Poynter reported that the other television networks in the White House pool — ABC, CBS, Fox News and NBC — declined to provide a replacement after the administration barred CNN from serving as the day's pool network. It said attorney Ted Boutrous, representing CNN, MS NOW and Politico, said in a statement that the White House is persisting in unpredictably and inconsistently implementing what he called the president's unconstitutional ban on the free press.

Poynter also reported that President Donald Trump renewed his criticism of the media in a 75-minute interview with Time magazine, attacking CNN White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins and suggesting The New York Times might be next on his banned list. It said Time also published a fact-check of the interview.