Hey, you're listening to the On the Media Midweek podcast. I'm Michael Lohinger. In the ongoing battle over the

future of Warner Brothers, its two would-be buyers, Netflix and Paramount, continue to vie for the company.

Netflix just wants control of the studio side, whereas Paramount wants the whole lot, including CNN.

A deal which President Trump says he's watching

closely and will insert himself into, if necessary.

Just a quick reminder, Paramount is owned by David Ellison, who last year installed Barry Weiss

as head of CBS News.

Just before the holidays, we learned that Weiss pulled a 60 Minutes piece investigating allegations

of abuse at the Salvadoran Detention Center, where the Trump administration sent hundreds of

Venezuelans earlier in the year. Weiss said she pulled the piece because it wasn't ready to air,

but the producers and reporters disagree, saying that the piece had been

through all the usual fact checks and legal reviews. Last summer, amid other stories of

possible media capitulation, New Yorker staff writer Emily Nussbaum was digging into a story

about a monumental figure in the early development of TV, the inventor

of the daily sitcom. That twisty tale occurred in a time of similar precarity for our media,

mid-20th century America. Brooks' conversation with Emily aired last August.

So you opened the article by taking us to May 9th, 1954, on the set of the

CBS game show, What's My Line? Time now for everybody's favorite guessing game. What's My Line? Brought

to you by News, the American's leading spray deodorant. Where judges are supposed to guess the identity of guests,

the well-known ones are often mystery guests, where the judges are blindfolded.

Are they all in place, panel?

Yes, sir.

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