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Marky Mark and The Funky Bunch: Mark Thompson, Chairman and CEO of CNN Worldwide, Audie Cornish, and Anderson Cooper attend Warner Bros. Discovery’s 2025 Upfront on May 14, 2025, in New York City. (Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Warner Bros. Discovery)
Welcome to the latest edition of Breaker. If this email has been forwarded, you can subscribe here and send your questions and complaints here. If you have a tip contact the 24/7 Breaker Tip Hotline via text or Signal # 551 655 2343. Anonymity guaranteed!
In tonight’s edition, the future of CNN has become one of the biggest media puzzles as we head into the second half of 2026. As the moneyman who helped land the Paramount/WBD deal, RedBird founder Gerry Cardinale is at the heart of its future. In tonight’s edition, we reveal what Cardinale had to say at the FT Festival about current CEO Mark Thompson, COO Alex MacCallum, CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss, and the future of the CNN newsroom.
Plus, Lachlan Murdoch’s annual London summer party is one of the hottest tickets where the worlds of media, politics, and society collide, and exactly who is up – and down – in Murdochland is revealed. We have a scene report below from the glitzy shindig, and some of the names who made the cut may surprise you.
Also in tonight’s bumper edition, a Daily Mail editor at the heart of a bombshell lawsuit is fired, new revelations about the inside story on ABC News’ $16 million Trump settlement, the New York Post responds to price gouging, and which fedora-wearing New York Times star was mistaken for Breaker at the Sulzberger annual BBQ?
Finally, if you spent the long weekend enjoying the sunshine, we have you covered with a comprehensive reading, watching, and listening list so you don’t miss a media yarn when you log off on summer Fridays.
Mentioned tonight: Bob Iger, Jeff Bezos, A.G. Sulzberger, Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Swan, Benjamin Mullin, Rupert Murdoch, Lachlan Murdoch, Ron DeSantis, Rebekah Brooks, Keith Poole, Rahm Emanuel, Frank Luntz, Kevin Rudd, John Lithgow, Roula Khalaf, Janine Gibson, Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson, Paul Krugman, Chris Black, Murad Ahmed, Edward Luce, George Hammond, Ed Hammond, Brooke Masters, Jay McInerney, Frederick Studemann, Anna Nicolaou, Josh Noble, Rhonda Taylor, Louis Wise, David Ellison, James Fontanella-Khan, Jon Craig, Katie Robertson, Robert Allbritton, Daniel Thomas, Samuel Agini, Joe Biden, Catherine Shoard, Sam Altman, Alexi Lalas, Aaron Timms, Paul Farhi, Rohan Goswami, Maxi Tani, Griffin Dunne, Tony Dokoupil, Isabella Simonetti, Michael Savage, Kenneth R. Weinstein, Sara Fischer, Neil Vogel, Brooks Barnes, Bron Maher, Almar Latour, Perry Stein, Fintan O’Toole, Tina Brown, Matt Belloni, Scott Nover, Tyler Denk, Charlotte Tobitt, Amanda Morgan, Simon Crerar, Boris Epshteyn, E. Jean Carroll, George Stephanopoulos, Richard Ellis, Marianne Garvey, Larry King, Sharon Stone, Count Binface, and more.
Cardinale Rules
(Exclusive.) What happens to CNN when Paramount closes its deal to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery is a matter hotly debated from Atlanta to Hudson Yards HQ within the news network.
Many staffers admit they are “in denial” about the possibility they will have to report to current CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss. Others we have spoken to are anxious about the layoffs to come and the potential for political interference from new owner David Ellison.
Pass the Grappa: The FT’s James Fontanella-Khan interviews Gerry Cardinale at Spring Studios on Saturday. (Photo: Breaker Media)
On Saturday at the Financial Times’ Weekend Festival at Spring Studios, one of the key architects of the deal, RedBird Capital Partners’ Gerry Cardinale, was interviewed by the FT’s U.S. Finance Editor James Fontanella-Khan. Khan earlier this year pulled off one of the most epic lunches with the FT with Cardinale, where the pair enjoyed two bottles of wine and a “fiery grappa” inside AC Milan’s private training ground canteen (Ed note: this should be taught in journalism college).
Breaker asked Cardinale what happens to CNN when the deal closes and if Bari Weiss should lead both CBS and CNN, and he responded …
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⁘ As credited in The New York Times, CNBC, Axios, The New York Post, CNN, Bloomberg, The Guardian, and more.
The Son Rises
(Exclusive.) It has been one hell of a week for Lachlan Murdoch following FOX’s acquisition of Roku for $22 billion, and record ratings for its World Cup coverage (all those “cooling breaks” have resulted in rivers of gold advertising dollars).
So what better way for Lachlan to celebrate than at his annual summer shindig hosted with wife Sarah at the historic Spencer House in London’s ritzy St James’s neighborhood?
On Thursday evening, that is where the great and the good of media, politics, and society were gathering to kiss the Murdoch ring.
Among the guests vying for Lachlan’s attention in the lush gardens of the 18th-century aristocratic palace were …
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⁘ As credited in The New York Times, CNBC, Axios, The New York Post, CNN, Bloomberg, The Guardian, and more.
THE HUMAN MOAT
Come September, Breaker will be packing a bag and heading down under as the international keynote speaker at Mumbrella’s “Publish” conference.
This year's theme, “Elevating Human Authority,” homes in on the fast-moving effect of A.I. on the global publishing landscape. “This year’s conference taps global expertise and convenes the local leaders driving the future of Australian publishing to discuss the transition from volume to yield,” conference curator Simon Crerar notes.
Breaker will be joined on the line-up with speakers from POLITICO, our friends at Nine Publishing, Australian Financial Review, News Corp, and more.
Tickets for Mumbrella “Publish” are now available at a special Early Bird rate until July 24.
Mail Man Sacked
(Exclusive.) The Daily Mail has fired a top editor following an internal investigation that was spurned by a lawsuit and a report in Breaker.
The Daily Mail terminated …
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⁘ As credited in The New York Times, CNBC, Axios, The New York Post, CNN, Bloomberg, The Guardian, and more.