What the 21 September 2026 decree actually created

The board has a name: the Editorial Independence Board. It is for CNN and CBS News. It comes out of the consent decree of 21 September 2026, in the Paramount–Warner Bros. Discovery merger. The size is five seats.

This page does not reproduce the decree. A sentence that is not in the fixed terms above is this desk’s limit, not a clause.

• Ten years as a journalist.
• Appointed by the combined Paramount–WBD board.
• Within 180 days of the merger.
• No more than two members from the same party.
• No government officials.
• No Paramount–WBD officers, directors, or non-journalist employees.

This edition does not define journalist, year, party, or the merger date. If the merger date and the decree date are not the same day, this page will not print an end date for the 180 days. Filling a definition the text has not supplied would turn a gap into a fact. That work waits.

Three functions are stated. No others are stated here.

1. Guiding principles.
2. Dispute resolution.
3. Monitoring ethics and editorial independence.

The combined board appoints the five. That power sits with the owner. A seat on the independence board does not make the member the owner.

Government officials may not sit. That is a bar on membership. It is not, on this page, a government veto over what airs, and it is not a promise that the state will stay off the phone. A person kept out of the chair can still try to shape the day. As this desk is willing to state it, the decree answers who may sit. It does not, here, answer who may call.

The last line is the beat, and it is the limit of the finding. Who decides what CNN and CBS News may air — and what happens when staff say the owner or the state is in the cut — is the subject of the file. It is not a result this explainer has earned.

• It will not quote decree language it does not have.
• It will not name appointees.
• It will not turn the ten-year rule into a scorecard of candidates.
• It will not present a model draft as the finding. Models may sort, transcribe, compare, and check dates. The lede belongs to the editor.

This desk is not applying for a seat.

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