‘Comprehensive’ Editorial Bias Review, Ombudsman To Ensure ‘Accountability,’ and Elimination of All DEI

Skydance Media has made a series of new commitments to eliminate bias in news and entertainment programming at CBS and its parent company, Paramount, when its planned acquisition of the companies is complete. Skydance is also confirming the “elimination” of all “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” policies and initiatives at Paramount, which had been one of the most aggressive proponents of DEI in the entertainment business. 

Should the Trump administration, as expected, approve the transaction, Skydance now says it will launch a “comprehensive review of CBS” focused on bias, as well as appoint an “ombudsman” to “evaluate complaints of bias or other concerns involving CBS,” and eliminate Paramount’s controversial Office of Global Inclusion.

“When it comes to the legacy national news media, change is long overdue,” Federal Communications Commission chairman Brendan Carr told the Washington Free Beacon.

Skydance laid out the moves in two letters it sent to Carr on Tuesday. The first letter addresses “concerns about media bias” at CBS and pledges to “ensure that CBS’s reporting is fair, unbiased, and fact-based.” The second outlines Skydance’s “commitments going forward” to “promote non-discrimination and equal employment opportunity.” 

CBS News has for more than 40 years been accused of liberal and anti-conservative bias and, more recently, strong anti-Israel bias. In recent years, late-night entertainment programming both at CBS and its sister Paramount network, Comedy Central, has also been called out for a pronounced liberal bias with a particular antipathy toward President Donald Trump.

“Skydance recognizes that, as a broadcast license, it will be charged with operating in the public interest, and the company intends to undertake a comprehensive review of CBS and to make any necessary changes to ensure compliance with that standard,” the first letter states. “In all respects, Skydance will ensure that CBS’s reporting is fair, unbiased, and fact-based.”

“To promote transparency and increased accountability,” it continues, “Skydance also will commit, for a period of at least two years, to have in place an ombudsman who reports to the President of New Paramount, who will receive and evaluate any complaints of bias or other concerns involving CBS. New Paramount’s executive leadership will carefully consider any such complaints in overseeing CBS’s news programming.” 

Skydance’s DEI-related letter, meanwhile, touts existing changes at Paramount that have eliminated or modified DEI initiatives. The changes were made under pressure from the Trump administration, which has been putting similar pressure on Disney and Comcast, two of Paramount’s biggest competitors, who have also pursued aggressive DEI policies, especially in the last five years. 

Going forward, the Skydance letter says, Paramount “no longer will maintain an Office of Global Inclusion,” will “not have any teams or individual roles focused on DEI,” and will remove “references to DEI in its public messaging, including on its websites and social media.”

The commitments come nearly one week after Skydance chief executive David Ellison met with Carr in Washington to lobby for the agency’s approval of the Paramount acquisition. A letter from a Skydance attorney describing the meeting revealed that Ellison committed “to unbiased journalism” and pledged to reflect “the varied ideological perspectives of American viewers” at CBS. The new letters use similar language but provide fresh details on how Ellison—the son of the world’s second richest man, Larry Ellison—plans to actualize those goals.

Should the Trump administration approve the acquisition, Ellison’s commitment to achieving viewpoint diversity would require forcing wholesale changes at CBS and, in particular, at CBS News.

The network has faced criticism for its news coverage of Israel in the wake of Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre. In one incident, CBS News’ morning program conducted an interview with the Jewish father of an 8-year-old girl held hostage by Hamas. Star anchor Gayle King accused the father of playing “politics.”

Lesley Stahl, a host of 60 Minutes, interviewed freed Israeli-American hostage Keith Siegel in April and asked him whether Hamas terrorists starved him because “they just didn’t have enough food.” In January, 60 Minutes also aired a segment on “dissent in the State Department over U.S. policy towards Israel and Gaza, which the American Jewish Committee called “shockingly one-sided.”

Perhaps most notably, on the first anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks, a senior CBS News executive reprimanded CBS Mornings cohost Tony Dokoupil for not meeting the network’s “standards” when he challenged the bestselling author Ta-Nehisi Coates about anti-Israel statements Coates made. The chairwoman of Paramount, Shari Redstone, a strong supporter of Israel, publicly criticized CBS News for its treatment of Dokoupil and took him out to lunch.

Internal editorial memos have also reflected anti-Israel bias at CBS News. In one of them, the network sent its staffers a list of terms “to be careful with” when talking or writing about Israel’s war on Hamas. One of those terms was “Jerusalem.” 

“Don’t refer to it as being in Israel,” wrote CBS News senior director of standards Mark Memmott. “The status of Jerusalem goes to the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” Another memo cautioned journalists about the use of the word “terrorist” when referring to Hamas.

Though CBS News is likely to attract much of Paramount’s attention as it reviews ideological bias, Skydance’s commitments also apply to CBS’s entertainment programming, which includes the recently canceled Late Show with Stephen Colbert. He is set to continue the show until May, though it’s unclear if a Skydance takeover will lead to an earlier end date if Colbert continues to mock, curse at, and criticize Trump every night.

Over at Comedy Central, Jon Stewart’s Monday night hosting of The Daily Show has become a nonstop series of attacks on Trump, including, this past Monday, a foul-mouthed song and dance routine, replete with dozens of f-bombs, that attacked media companies (including Paramount) for compromising with Trump.

CBS News’s programming has been dogged by liberal bias going back to its coverage of the Vietnam War, and to Senator Jesse Helms’s unsuccessful campaign in the 1980s to buy CBS and “be Dan Rather’s boss.” In recent months, 60 Minutes aired segment after segment attacking the Trump administration, even as it was tied up in litigation Trump brought against CBS over how 60 Minutes producers edited their October 2024 interview with Kamala Harris to make her sound coherent. The lawsuit was recently settled (Colbert, on his program last week, called the settlement “a big fat bribe”). 

CBS News personality Margaret Brennan has also come under criticism for engaging in biased conduct during her moderation of the 2024 vice presidential debate and for badgering Face the Nation guests, such as Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President J.D. Vance, with biased questions.