The Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery combination is on hold until an antitrust trial scheduled for March 2027. That’s a long wait for a deal already measured in the tens of billions, and Paramount CEO David Ellison used a guest essay in The New York Times to make his case while the clock runs.

His argument is worth taking seriously, partly because it’s unusual and partly because it may be correct. The lawsuit, he says, challenges how much control the combined company would have over movie releases and cable channels. The real objection, in his reading, is CNN. He committed to maintaining CNN’s editorial independence and said news should be grounded in facts and truth.