Plan for editorial oversight board at CNN and CBS News draws skepticism: ‘Utter garbage’

An editorial oversight board must be set up within 180 days after the closing of the merger deal between Paramount and Warner Bros Discovery. Photograph: Kevin Carter/Getty Images

Leading media figures and insiders dismissed plans to create an editorial oversight board to protect CNN’s independence as “utter garbage” – in one staffer’s words – after a settlement was reached to resolve a lawsuit filed by a coalition of 12 states to block Paramount’s $110bn acquisition of Warner Bros Discovery.

California’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, during a press conference to announce the settlement, said that Paramount “must establish a news editorial independence board to support CBS News and CNN’s continued editorial independence to ensure independent, objective, fact-based reporting at CBS News and at CNN”.