Pressure of Truth
Exposing the spin on all sides of the news.
Outlet profile

CNN / Time

U.S. center-left (CNN); U.S. center / center-left, establishment mainstream (Time)

Owned byCNN: owned by Skydance (formerly Paramount Skydance), controlled by David Ellison. Its $110 billion purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery, CNN's former parent, closed on October 6, 2026. Time: owned personally by Marc Benioff, co-founder and CEO of Salesforce, and his wife Lynne, who bought it in 2018 for $190 million. Time is run separately from Benioff's company.
FundingCNN: cable carriage fees, advertising, and a growing digital subscription and paywall effort. It is now backed by a much larger entertainment conglomerate. Time: print and digital subscriptions, advertising, events, licensing, and the personal backing of its billionaire owner.
On the administrationmixed

Background

CNN was founded in 1980 by Ted Turner as the first 24-hour news channel. It joined Time Warner in 1996, passed to AT&T in 2018, and went to Warner Bros. Discovery when WarnerMedia was spun off in 2022. CEO Chris Licht's attempt to move CNN toward the center ended with his exit in 2023. Mark Thompson, a former BBC and New York Times executive, replaced him and has pushed a digital and subscription strategy. Thompson has said CNN should hold Trump accountable without 'throwing punches.' In the second term, CNN has been barred from some White House press-pool roles, and it rejected the Pentagon's new press-credential rules in October 2025. The Paramount-WBD deal was settled with an independent editorial board over CNN and CBS News. Thompson and CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss are staying in their posts, and critics worry about editorial independence under the Ellison family, who have close ties to Trump. Time was founded in 1923 by Henry Luce and Briton Hadden and became the flagship of Time Inc. Time Inc. was merged into Time Warner in 1990, spun off in 2014, and sold to Meredith in 2018. Benioff then bought the magazine himself. Time's journalism is mainstream and establishment-oriented, with high-profile Trump features such as the 2024 Person of the Year. Benioff has publicly praised Trump and backed sending National Guard troops to San Francisco. Time has also been reported to have given Trump a more flattering cover image after he objected to an earlier one, which raises questions about owner influence.

Sources

  1. CNN, CBS News now under one roof as Paramount-Warner Bros merger closes (Al Jazeera)
  2. Paramount completes $110B Warner Bros. merger to form Skydance (NBC News)
  3. Paramount-Warner Bros Discovery Merger Closes, Creating Skydance Media (Deadline)
  4. Bari Weiss Tells CBS News Staff 'There Is a Lot That We Still Don't Know' as Paramount Merger Closes (TheWrap)
  5. CNN Chief Says Network Should Not Be 'Throwing Punches' In Trump Coverage (Deadline)
  6. 2025 Pentagon press pass forfeiture (Wikipedia)
  7. Time magazine owner commends Donald Trump for Person of the Year win (The Hill)
  8. Why Salesforce's Marc Benioff is cheerleading for Donald Trump (SF Chronicle)
  9. Billionaire Owner Woos Trump With Flattering TIME Cover After Meltdown (Daily Beast)

Profile compiled 2026-10-09; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.

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