And in the weeks since Paramount Skydance prevailed over Netflix to purchase the conglomerate – inserting NCS below the oversight of Paramount govt David Ellison, the son of Oracle founder and Trump ally Larry Ellison, whose wealth backed the bid – Trump’s criticism has not waned.
Two weeks after Paramount received its bid, the White House issued a press launch arguing that NCS was “lying” about its protection on the struggle with Iran in an effort to undermine the success of the administration’s army operation. That identical day, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth lambasted a NCS article on how the administration did not anticipate the struggle’s influence on the Strait of Hormuz, calling it “fake news” in a press briefing.
“The sooner David Ellison takes over that network, the better,” Hegseth mentioned.
The barrage from the Trump White House has taken on new that means as Ellison’s possession looms, elevating the stakes and fueling anxiousness amongst the community’s journalists. The youthful Ellison has promised to respect the cable community’s editorial independence, however its staff fear about political interference and huge cuts to personnel, since it could share a company overlord with CBS News ought to shareholders and regulators approve the deal.
Ellison and NCS Chairman and CEO Mark Thompson have emphasised in latest weeks that the community wouldn’t be swayed by political affect.
“We stand by our journalism,” Thompson wrote in response to the assaults. “Politicians have an obvious motive for claiming that journalism which raises questions about their decisions is false. At NCS our only interest is in telling the truth to our audiences.”
“NCS is an incredible brand with an incredible team,” Ellison mentioned in an interview with CNBC, per week after Netflix dropped its bid. “We absolutely believe in the independence that needs to be maintained, obviously, for those incredible journalists, and we want to support that going forward.”
White House senior deputy press secretary Kush Desai mentioned in an e-mail that the president was not attempting to affect the deal.
“President Trump is not involved in the independent DoJ review process for either this or any other transaction,” Desai mentioned. “Both he and the administration remained totally neutral throughout it.”
However, a number of NCS staffers, who spoke on the situation of anonymity for worry of retribution, expressed a level of dread about the sale.
While White House assaults are “the same old, same old,” there’s “an added big asterisk,” one NCS workers member mentioned, referring to the uncertainty of Ellison’s approaching possession.
The Justice Department didn’t reply to a request for touch upon the merger, whereas a Defense Department spokeswoman declined to remark past Hegseth’s remarks.
Paramount Skydance and CBS didn’t reply to a request for remark for this story. Representatives for NCS and Warner Bros. declined to touch upon staffers’ anxieties about the pending deal.
Despite Ellison’s assurances, questions are swirling amongst some staffers about how lengthy guarantees of editorial independence will maintain. Right now, NCS fires again when attacked, the NCS staffer mentioned, however now “there’s the question in the back of my mind – would we be sending the same statement in eight months or whenever this closes?”
The staffer added that the pending merger has truly accelerated work inside the newsroom, with management pushing to get long-term digital initiatives throughout the end line earlier than the deal closes. “Nobody wants their creation to be another NCS+,” the staffer mentioned, referring to a short-lived streaming service from NCS.
Some staff mentioned they’re involved about job losses and hoping the deal takes so long as potential to shut. “At the end of the day, people really care about whether they’ll have a job and be able to afford their mortgage while [David] Zaslav makes his next $800 million,” one staffer mentioned, referring to the Warner Bros. Discovery CEO. Based on securities filings, Zaslav is predicted to obtain about $667 million from the deal, with potential tax reimbursements that might push the whole increased.
Another NCS staffer mentioned they have been extra involved about mismanagement ought to a brand new guard – or CBS News’s present management – take management. Trump has praised Bari Weiss, the former New York Times opinion author and critic of “wokeness” who Ellison put in as editor in chief of CBS News. She has clashed with the information community as she makes an attempt to remake the group in her first six months in cost.
“People at NCS have concerns about competence, even more so than editorial interference,” the staffer mentioned.
Current and former NCS staffers mentioned they hint Trump’s animus towards the community partly to Jeff Zucker, who was president of NCS Worldwide from 2013 to 2022. Zucker, as an govt at NBC in the early 2000s, green-lit Trump’s actuality present “The Apprentice,” which debuted in 2004. But by the time Trump took political workplace, their relationship had soured. “Zucker failed @NBC and he is now failing @NCS,” Trump wrote in a 2016 social media submit.
Since 2015, the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker has documented greater than 3,500 anti-press social media posts from Trump. Hundreds of them particularly point out NCS.
The cable information community is at the moment run by the British-born Thompson, the former chief govt at the New York Times who took the helm in 2023 after Chris Licht’s tumultuous flip. Staffers typically expressed religion in Thompson, who has emphasised constructing a shopper subscription enterprise with out repeating the errors of NCS+ or scaling again the present cable providing.
Thompson has signaled that he desires to remain at the helm of NCS. “As I’ve said, I’m really committed to NCS,” he instructed staffers in a London city corridor just lately. “I’m in the middle of something exciting and interesting with all of you, and I’d like to continue it.”
The United States launched assaults in opposition to Iran someday after Paramount was confirmed as the profitable bidder. One NCS journalist mentioned staffers are attempting to deal with reporting.
“Everyone had 24 hours to worry about Paramount, but then all hell broke loose,” the reporter mentioned, including that the incontrovertible fact that NCS’s struggle reporting could be seen was “a good, reassuring thing, given the ownership question mark.”
Trump’s hostility to NCS was evident throughout his first presidential time period, when he clashed publicly with reporters comparable to Jim Acosta.
One former NCS journalist, who spoke on the situation of anonymity as a result of they weren’t approved by their present employer to remark, famous that in morning editorial conferences at the time, Zucker urged them to be powerful. “Often, he would spend the first 10 to 15, maybe even 20 minutes, rallying the troops, talking about how important it was that we investigate things Trump was doing, that we not let up, that we not let things slide,” the reporter mentioned.
Zucker didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Verbal assaults in opposition to journalists grew to become widespread. “You weren’t covering the White House until somebody there came after you,” mentioned one other former NCS reporter. These reporters added that Trump appeared to carry explicit disdain for the community.
That got here to a head in 2018, when the White House quickly suspended the press credentials of Acosta, NCS’s chief White House correspondent at the time. The revocation adopted a White House information convention wherein Trump known as Acosta “a rude, terrible person.” NCS sued, and a federal choose finally ordered the White House to revive Acosta’s credentials. Acosta, who left NCS in early 2025, declined to remark for this text.
Meanwhile, Trump’s acrimonious relationship with NCS’s present chief White House correspondent, Kaitlan Collins, has solely worsened all through his second time period. In December, Trump attacked her in a Truth Social submit, writing: “Caitlin Collin’s of Fake News NCS, always Stupid and Nasty.”
In the Oval Office in February, Trump known as Collins “the worst reporter” when she tried to ask about recordsdata associated to convicted intercourse offender Jeffrey Epstein. “She’s a young woman – I don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile,” Trump mentioned. “I’ve known you for 10 years. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a smile on your face.”
In an e-mail, a NCS spokeswoman mentioned ““Kaitlan Collins is an exceptional journalist, reporting every day from the White House and the field with real depth and tenacity.”
On March 14, the day after the White House press launch and Hegseth’s derisive feedback about NCS, Trump shared a graphic on Truth Social touting an inventory of perceived accomplishments in “reshaping the media.”
Among them have been Acosta’s departure from the community and one other victory at NCS: its “new ownership.”