Ever since President Trump banned MS NOW, CNN, and Politico from the White House, there has been plenty of rhetoric from the media about how the First Amendment says that politicians do not get to pick on who reports on them or to say what is fake news and what isn’t. However, on Tuesday’s Money, Power, Politics, MS NOW host Stephanie Ruhle lamented that a California-led coalition of blue state attorneys general essentially folded in their attempts to block the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger because they do not like Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison’s politics or perceived politics.
California ran up the white flag after Ellison threatened to take his movie-making operations out of state, but California did win a concession in the settlement that says CBS (Paramount) and CNN (Warner Bros.) will have to set up a five-person board consisting of current or former journalists to mediate disputes between journalists and management. According to Deadline, “No more than two members may be affiliated with the same political party.”
Some attempts to silence the media are better than others. MS NOW's Stephanie Ruhle laments that California basically folded in its attempt to block the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger because it doesn't like David Ellison's politics (or perceived politics), "They're going to… pic.twitter.com/hnoXHz868Y
— Alex Christy (@alexchristy17) September 22, 2026
However, for Ruhle, that was not good enough, as she lamented to Washington Sun reporter Jeff Stein, “So, they're going to continue doing a lot of projects in California in L.A. to keep people employed. But this editorial board for CNN and CBS: How does one know it's going to have any teeth? You don't know who's going to be on the editorial board. You don't know what they're going to do. I mean, already we've heard from ousted CNN—excuse me, 60 Minutes reporters who said that management tried to interfere and push agendas into their stories, agendas that weren't even true. And that's already happened.”
Democratic state attorneys general are bound by the First Amendment too. For an industry that is currently wailing and gnashing its teeth about access to a building and being called “fake news,” it seems to have far less concern about government suing to try to prevent CBS and 60 Minutes from maybe becoming slightly less liberal under the guise of fighting fake news.
For his part, Stein agreed with Ruhle, “Yeah. I think, you know, when you read the comments from the lawyers about this case, they've been very clear that we do not have any sort of enforceable agreement to ensure editorial standards. And we don't have, really, the text of what this is going to be and what it's going to look like.”
He then at least tried to pretend that the states’ stated antitrust concerns were legitimate, “And I think this is part of why antitrust experts have been saying, you know, in 1983, 90 percent of the media was controlled by about 50 companies, which is already pretty small. If you think about it, we are going to be down to 5 or 6 at this point, which is a huge change. Now, obviously, the companies argue that, you know, the definition of traditional media has expanded, and there's some truth to that.”
Returning to the idea of the review board, Stein concluded, “But the ways that we produce and gather news is really just shrunk to something you could count on one hand, which is an incredible phenomenon and really sort of brings to emphasize this question you're raising about the editorial independence of these companies and this board.”
One reason why people have a hard time feeling sorry for the media after Trump’s Friday ban is the idea that the media is hypocritical in their outrage, and Stephanie Ruhle and Jeff Stein could not even go four days before proving them correct.
Here is a transcript for the September 22 show:
MS NOW Money, Power, Politics
9/22/2026
9:29 AM ET
STEPHANIE RUHLE: So, Jeff, they basically, to Ron's point, made an agreement. So, they're going to continue doing a lot of projects in California in L.A. to keep people employed. But this editorial board for CNN and CBS: How does one know it's going to have any teeth? You don't know who's going to be on the editorial board. You don't know what they're going to do. I mean, already we've heard from ousted CNN—excuse me, 60 Minutes reporters who said that management tried to interfere and push agendas into their stories, agendas that weren't even true. And that's already happened.
JEFF STEIN: Yeah. I think, you know, when you read the comments from the lawyers about this case, they've been very clear that we do not have any sort of enforceable agreement to ensure editorial standards. And we don't have, really, the text of what this is going to be and what it's going to look like.
And I think this is part of why antitrust experts have been saying, you know, in 1983, 90 percent of the media was controlled by about 50 companies, which is already pretty small. If you think about it, we are going to be down to 5 or 6 at this point, which is a huge change.
Now, obviously, the companies argue that, you know, the definition of traditional media has expanded, and there's some truth to that. But the ways that we produce and gather news is really just shrunk to something you could count on one hand, which is an incredible phenomenon and really sort of brings to emphasize this question you're raising about the editorial independence of these companies and this board.
