43-Year CNN Veteran Announces Her Departure Weeks After Paramount Takes Over Network

Christiane Amanpour, CNN’s chief international anchor, confirmed reports on Monday that she will be leaving the network next June.

The move comes just weeks after Paramount Skydance finalized its merger with Warner Bros. Discovery, which is the parent company of CNN, NBC News reported.

“After thinking carefully for several months and experiencing a few sleepless nights, as you can imagine, I’ve decided to separate from CNN, my partner for 43 fantastic years, longer than many marriages,” Amanpour said.

She joined the network a few years after CNN launched in 1980.

“So this daily show on CNN and PBS will come to an end at the end of this year, but CNN and I have worked out a smooth transition while I continue doing ‘Amanpour’ once a week through to June,” she added.

“Now you know I’ve always been fiercely independent, and I will continue to be that for you for as long as I am here, and beyond,” Amanpour pledged.

She concluded, “That’s especially important today as we face unprecedented pressures from all sides — political, financial, and also from the rising dangers in the field.”

An update from me… https://t.co/AKLOEekEO2

— Christiane Amanpour (@amanpour) October 19, 2026

Many on the left, like Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, opposed the Paramount merger with Warner, fearing the impact it might have on CNN’s newsroom, which has been reliably liberal.

One family, the right-wing Trump-aligned Ellisons, will soon control:

TikTok
CBS
CNN
HBO
Discovery Channel
BET
Cartoon Network
Comedy Central
DC Studios
Fandango
Miramax
MTV
Nickelodeon
Paramount
PlutoTV
Showtime
TBS
The CW
TNT
Warner Bros.
And more

This is oligarchy.

— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) March 11, 2026

David Ellison, the CEO of Paramount, is a friend of President Donald Trump’s and has attended events at the White House, but he has downplayed the relationship, saying they are not “especially close,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.

“We have a good relationship with this administration. We also had a good relationship with the Biden administration,” Ellison told reporters earlier this month, also noting he has a “good relationship with Gov. Gavin Newsom.”

“It’s important to talk to everyone on both sides of the aisle,” Ellison said. “We don’t want to politicize.”

Will Chamberlain of the Edmund Burke Foundation argued in an April opinion piece after Paramount’s holders approved the company’s merger plans with Warner that under Ellison’s ownership, CBS News — a subsidiary of Paramount — has appeared to tack back toward the center.

“He bought news site The Free Press and installed its founder — anti-woke, classical liberal Bari Weiss — as CBS’s editor-in-chief,” Chamberlain noted.

“The change was obvious right away,” he continued. “Weiss refused to allow a story about President Trump’s deportation policy to run without proper context. Then, at a time when most mainstream outlets were scoffing at the administration’s war on health care fraud, CBS sent a reporter to pound the pavement and discover the true extent of these scams.”

Chamberlain concluded, “Mainstream media outlets that cultivate genuine intellectual diversity and follow stories wherever they lead seemed like an impossible dream just a few years ago. Thanks to Ellison, they’re closer than ever to becoming a reality.”

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