Lifestyle
How to create a DIY water feature for a habitat garden without breaking the bank
These days, habitat gardens are all the rage among eco-conscious Californians. They add native plants to their yards, patios or even balconies to provide food and shelter for wildlife.
But here’s the bitter truth: It’s not a real habitat garden if it doesn’t have a water source, as in a place where bees and butterflies can reliably sip without drowning or where birds can splash and preen.
In L.A., water rules everything around us. Drink up, cool off and dive into our stories about hydrating and recreating in the city.
I have been pining for a water feature for years, but I’ve always been too intimidated to proceed. Store-bought fountains are pricy and their setup seems daunting. And while I’ve long lusted over hand-built fountains and elaborate ponds, I’m a klutz when it comes to building things from scratch.
All I wanted was a simple recirculating fountain near my bedroom window, so I could fall asleep to the soothing sounds of gurgling water. But the fear of failure always stopped me until I talked to people who have created their own water features and learned a few crucial tips:
- You don’t need a dedicated water line or even electricity and a pump to create a simple water feature. All you need is a big, watertight pot, wider than deep, a few water plants and a handful of little fish to keep mosquitoes at bay.
- Anyone with time, muscle and access to YouTube (or the library) can build a small pond or simple water feature, but there will be some labor and unavoidable expenses, so try to have all your materials assembled before you engage — unless you like interrupting your project to dash to the store.
- Proceed boldly, but prepare yourself mentally, because something always goes wrong, said Chris Elwell, co-owner (with his husband, Kory Odell) of the fabled Casa Apocalyptica, an arresting landscape of salvaged rubble, water features and native plants around their home in Mid-Wilshire.
“Just know you’re going to make a lot of mistakes,” said Odell, a civil engineer who built an 8-by-12-foot in-ground pond for their front yard. “You’ll screw it up, and then you’re going to fix it, and that’s how you’re going to learn.”
DIY water features instructor Andrew Chaves has created water gardens in recycled plant pots in his Long Beach yard.
(Jeanette Marantos / Los Angeles Times)
Stand-alones are simplest
Experimentation and patience are the most important tools for creating your own water feature, said DIY water features instructor Andrew Chaves, director of operations at Rancho Los Alamitos Historic Ranch and Gardens in Long Beach. He’s offering a class called Water Gardening in Small Spaces at the rancho on Aug. 4, and expects to teach another this fall at his former place of employment, the Theodore Payne Foundation.
Chaves doesn’t object to fountains with pumps, but he prefers the simplicity of still water features so he doesn’t have to worry about power cords or special water lines.
Andrew Chaves’ water garden, in a 24-inch-tall sealed clay pot, is a simple, serene way to bring water to a habitat garden.
(Jeanette Marantos / Los Angeles Times)
He creates “water gardens” in large, watertight pots with (mostly) native water plants that give insects and other tiny drinkers a safe place to perch on floating plants like duckweed (Lemna minor), mosquito fern (Azolla filiculoides) and miniature water lilies, which also shade the water and keep it cool. He keeps mosquitoes away with a dozen or so tiny fish that devour their larvae.
Chaves and his wife, Amanda, also dug out a roughly 4-foot-by-6-foot hole for a preformed plastic pond that a colleague gave them when he couldn’t use it. Fitting the pond into the ground was a difficult project, they said, because the hole had to align with the inflexible contours of the pond and sit flush against the ground. If he did it again, he said, he probably would use a heavy-duty pond liner instead, because it would be easier to press the liner into the hole and disguise the edges with rocks and plants.
Covering the edges of a pond is always a challenge, said Elwell, even if you use a pond liner, because it’s hard to make it look natural. People buy decorative rocks or materials that look pretty in the store “but end up looking hokey around the pond because you don’t see those materials anywhere else in the yard,” he said. “You’re better off using something from your yard, even if it’s ugly, because it looks like it belongs.”
Kory Odell built this small pond with help from his husband, Chris Elwell, in their Mid-Wilshire yard to create a habitat of native plants, water features and salvaged rubble dubbed Casa Apocalyptica.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
At night, their ponds are alive with frog song, and they do whatever they can to nurture their croakers. That’s why Elwell, Odell and Chaves don’t keep fish in their ponds; they don’t want hungry fish to gobble up frog eggs or tiny tadpoles.
Elwell and Odell have a recirculating waterfall in their pond that provides enough movement to deter mosquitoes. Chaves uses mosquito dunks, beige, doughnut-shaped floats that kill mosquito larvae but are nontoxic to other creatures.
In his small water gardens, however, Chaves prefers to use Japanese rice fish, which come in several colors, grow about an inch long and tend to leave beneficial insects alone, unlike mosquito fish, which eat almost anything in their path, he said. Tiny snails and shrimp known as daphnia eat algae and provide additional food for the fish.
A rusty repurposed industrial-sized spigot spills recirculating water into a small waterfall and pond at Casa Apocalyptica.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
He has several other tips:
- The best pots are wider than they are deep to give plants more surface space, but the best depth is 18 inches, to give the fish room to dive into cooler waters and hide. If you want to use deeper pots, you’ll need a brick or shelf at the bottom so plants that like their roots submerged, like water lilies, can still reach the surface.
- Unglazed pots like terracotta should be sealed on the inside with a rubber-based paint like Flex Seal, which the company says is safe around plants and animals once it’s fully cured (after at least 24 hours). The sealant is expensive — about $35 a quart — but Chaves has covered three large clay pots with that amount. He uses Gorilla epoxy stick putty to fill the container holes.
- Some water plants like to have their roots totally submerged, but you can’t grow them in ordinary potting soil, which will just float away. Some people use special potting soils for pond plants or pea gravel, but Chaves prefers a fragrance-free clay kitty litter, which is less expensive and heavy enough to stay in place in the water.
- Water should be dechlorinated before you add fish, by using special tablets or letting the water sit in an open bucket for at least 24 hours so the chlorine can dissipate. Chaves also recommends adding the plants and snails a week or two before adding a few fish, to build up a culture of bacteria that can consume the poop the fish will produce. Otherwise the fish could die from ammonia poisoning.
Jesse Chang’s oval tub pond stands about 18 inches above the ground in his Monterey Park yard, surrounded by tall, California-native water plants to attract pollinators.
(Jesse Chang)
Ponds can be above ground
Jesse Chang, executive director of Catalyst San Gabriel Valley, is another fan of experimentation, along with heavy research. He credits “The Tub Pond Handbook” by Ted Coletti and the “California Native Water Plants and Life” Facebook group with helping him maintain the 85-gallon aboveground “tub pond” he installed outside his Monterey Park home.
Chang bought his roughly 3-by-4-foot oval tub secondhand for under $100 (a similar tub costs $133 new on DK Hardware) at the handbook’s recommendation because he wanted to discourage raccoons. Those animals can be pretty destructive, moving around rocks and plants in search of food — both Chaves and Casa Apocalyptica have had to contend with prying paws — but it’s harder for them to mess with a pond that stands 18 inches above the ground, Chang said.
Instead of lining his pond with rocks, he’s surrounded the tub with water-loving potted plants like monkey flowers and rushes to draw in pollinators and soften the hard edges.
He’s using plain old minnows in his pond for now to deter mosquitoes because he was worried that dragonfly larvae would eat his tiny fish. Minnows are much less expensive than rice fish — “about 20 cents versus $4” — so he started with minnows in case his investment got eaten. He’s lost a few, but most are looking healthier than the ones in the store.
Taking the plunge
These water gardens were lovely and relatively simple, but I still wanted the soothing sound of burbling water.
So summoning up my courage, I followed Elwell’s advice and began scouring YouTube for easy DIY fountains. That’s how I found a cheerful tutorial by permaculture landscape designer Daryl Lindsey of Yardfarmer in Salt Lake City with a title right up my alley: “Make This EASY, FAST, DIY Water Feature for Local Wildlife!”
Astonishingly, I did, although it wasn’t as easy or fast as I had hoped. It took me most of a weekend, multiple trips for things I forgot and a hard lesson in pump mechanics, but by Sunday evening, my little turquoise fountain was ready to turn on.
Following Lindsey’s advice, I rummaged through my collection of containers and found a large ceramic pot without a drain hole to use as my reservoir — saving myself at least $50 to $100 — and purchased the following:
- A submersible recirculating pump with 6.5 feet of half-inch tubing and several connectors ($30 from Amazon).
- A tall black pot to fit upside down in my reservoir, to cover the pump and give my water feature some extra height ($20 on sale at Lowe’s).
- Three black bricks to give the internal pot even more height (about $4 at Lowe’s).
- Three glazed plant saucers to stack above the black pot and hold pretty rocks I’ve been collecting for years. Deciding what to use took most of the day. ($47 from Green Thumb Ventura).
- A half-inch titanium drill bit to drill holes in my saucers ($15 at Lowe’s).
- A tube of silicone adhesive and a couple of half-inch clamps to make sure the hose stayed attached ($8 and $5, respectively, at Lowe’s).
The total? About $130, plus a day of wandering around garden centers fretting about what saucers and pots to choose and how to stack them.
The hardest part was drilling holes in the middle of the glazed saucers. You must drill slowly to avoid cracking or chipping the ceramic plates and spray the surface frequently with water so it doesn’t get too hot.
When the holes were drilled and the fountain was assembled, it weighed a ton, even without water. (Pro tip: Do your assembling where you plan to keep the fountain, or be sure you have a dolly or Hercules to move it.)
Finally, with the reservoir filled with water, I plugged in the pump and stood over my creation with bated breath. I expected to see a gently gurgling fountain. I had purchased a submersible recirculating water pump that moves 880 gallons per hour — I reasoned that bigger was better, right?
Wrong. After a few seconds I was hit full force by an 8-foot-tall geyser, and there wasn’t any lever on the pump that reduced the force. In desperation I piled some bigger rocks on top of the spout, which forced the water into submission. I’m hoping the rocks will keep Old Faithful under control until I can purchase a pump that only moves about 100 gallons per hour.
At long last, however, I went to sleep listening to the soothing babble of running water outside my bedroom window. And I dreamed about using that 880-gallon-per-hour pump to create a little waterfall and pond in my front yard.
The scoreboard shows the results of the women’s singles final match between Iga Swiatek of Poland and Amanda Anisimova of the U.S. at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London, Saturday, July 12, 2025.
Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP
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Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP
Fifteen points in tennis? Nice. Thirty, 40 — even better. Advantage — that sounds good. “Love” — that also must be great, right? Well, not quite.
As the French Open rolls on and Serena Williams has announced her return to the sport, maybe you’ve been paying a little more attention to tennis. The sport’s scoring system is notably distinct, and can sometimes be hard to grasp for newcomers. But even tennis aficionados might not know why, or how, “love” became the unmistakable callout for zero points. For this installment of NPR’s Word of the Week, we’re exploring how a word that signifies trailing behind got such a sweet name.
“Love” comes from the heart — or an egg?
It’s hard to pinpoint when the first tennis ball went over the net. Tennis is a derivative of lots of other sports, such as “jeu de paume,” a handball game played in France, said JT Buzanga, the collections manager at the International Tennis Hall of Fame museum.
But tennis became a patented, official sport in 1874, said Steve Flink, a journalist whose tennis coverage got him inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame. It has retained its unique, mysterious scoring system ever since.
“By and large, the original system has held up almost entirely,” Flink said.
The use of “love” goes back to the late 18th century, said Jesse Sheidlower, a lexicographer. But it was used earlier than that in card games such as whist and bridge. Before the term made its way to tennis, the sport favored plain old “nothing,” or “nil,” he said.
Why love in the first place, though? Historians don’t really know for sure, but there are a few theories.
The French could have something to do with it. Some historians believe “love” derives from “l’oeuf,” which means “the egg” in French. Because eggs are shaped like zeros, terms such as “goose egg” and “duck’s egg” have been used in other contexts to mean zero, Sheidlower said.
It’s also possible English speakers mispronounced l’oeuf as “love.” But Sheidlower isn’t convinced that’s the answer.
“It’s the French equivalent of an English expression. But since that expression doesn’t appear in French, the French word wouldn’t have been used,” he said.
To be sure, France has had a lot of influence on tennis culture, Buzanga said. For example, “deuce” or a game tied at 40 points, comes from the French word for “two”: “deux.” But he prefers another prominent theory: that “love” comes from the idiom “for the love of the game.” Even if a player hasn’t scored, it doesn’t matter, because their heart is in it. It’s the theory Sheidlower said is the most plausible, because the idiom was used by the English before tennis was popularized.
Another variation of the “love of the game” theory is that the word could have come from the Dutch “lof,” or “honor” — or the Latin “amare,” meaning “to love,” Flink said.
But if tennis’ “love” doesn’t come from a French word, the theory at least has a French sensibility.
“I think the ‘for the love of the game’ is kind of romantic,” Buzanga said.
“Love” probably isn’t going anywhere
Tennis used to be a sport of leisure. The style of play has changed a lot over the years; players are more athletic and competitive, for instance, Flink said. But the rules of the sport are more steadfast, he said.
“There’s this incredible, enduring respect for tradition in tennis,” he said. “Changes are not made easily.”
There has been one major change in modern history: the tie-break. Matches can go on and on because players have to score two consecutive points to break a deuce, or by two games to break a tied set. But the onset of television meant matches would have to get shorter if the sport wanted to capture a larger audience, Flink said.
Change even came for “love.” An alternative sprouted up in the 1970s, and is still used today: “bagel,” named for its zero shape, Sheidlower said. Novices may say “zero,” and insiders will understand what they mean, but they “will needle them about it,” Flink said.
But “love” still prevails.
“People kind of like it,” Flink said. “It’s different. Why say zero when you can say love?”
On a 75-mile cliff-hugging stretch of highway in California, traffic is way up, despite soaring gas prices. And locals expect the busiest summer in years.
The road is Highway 1 in Big Sur, which reopened in January after three years of repair and reconstruction following a pair of landslides. Drivers can once again embark on the state’s most famous road trip, covering the 100 miles between Cambria to the south and Carmel to the north without leaving the two-lane coastal highway. And they’re heading out in big numbers.
Caltrans estimates that as of May, Big Sur restaurant and retailer guest counts are up 40% from last year, and that northbound traffic at Ragged Point, the southern gateway to Big Sur, has risen 900% year-over-year.
People pose for photos near Bixby Bridge. Monterey County’s Board of Supervisors voted to explore a 12-month ban on parking around the bridge.
Safety cones prevent parking along Coast Road near the Bixby Bridge.
“Take your time,” said Kirk Gafill, co-owner of the popular Nepenthe restaurant and president of the Big Sur Chamber of Commerce, offering advice to travelers. “You’re going to be sharing the road with a number of people.”
As travelers rediscover the road, the cost of driving has been shooting skyward. California’s average gas price ($6.11 per gallon as of May 26) is up 26% from the year before. In early April, rates hit $9.99 at the isolated gas station in the Big Sur community of Gorda.
For spring and summer travelers, these numbers would seem to pose a stark question: Stay home and save money, or head for the coast because the road is finally open and it’s still cheaper than flying?
So far, the latter answer is winning big.
Fog lingers off the coast of Highway 1.
“We are definitely seeing a huge uptick in our reservations,” said Megan Handy, assistant general manager at the upscale Treebones resort. She estimated that bookings are 30% or more ahead of last year, and rates are unchanged since then. But “it’s still not feeling super crowded, which is nice. Everything still feels kind of calm.”
But added traffic has raised some anxiety. On May 19, Monterey County’s Board of Supervisors voted to explore a 12-month ban on parking at Bixby Bridge, one of the region’s top photo spots.
Over the years, the number of cars parking near the bridge — often illegally, sometimes impeding emergency vehicles — has risen. The proposed parking moratorium won’t take effect until the supervisors discuss it further.
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Busy as things are, several business owners pointed out that many international travelers have not yet returned — perhaps because most make their plans more than six months ahead, perhaps because of global politics, perhaps a little of each.
The biggest challenge for businesses during this resurgence? “Restaffing and retaining,” said Handy at Treetops.
At Nepenthe, Gafill said his business has seen a 45% boost in guest volume since the road’s reopening. Gafill said he would have expected a 35% pickup, “simply by virtue of reopening the highway.” The additional 10%, he said, might be “all that pent-up demand,” aided by “a very beautiful and very dry winter,” followed by a mild spring.
A lunch crowd dines at popular restaurant Nepenthe.
Another possible factor: Nobody can be sure how long the road will remain open.
To cope with the influx of people, Gafill said, “everybody is trying to recruit and retain their existing staff.”
At the Ragged Point Inn, where rates dropped as low as $149 nightly last fall, rates are back over $200 and staffers are suggesting that customers book at least six months ahead. The inn has reopened its snack bar for the first time since early 2023, and management is investing in capital upgrades and staging live music on weekends throughout the summer.
Business “is up over 100%,” said Diane Ramey, whose family owns the inn. “I know not all of our neighbors are having the same lift, but everybody is doing better.”
Traffic approaching Bixby Bridge.
A visitor poses in an oversized chair at Big Sur River Inn.
Even at the New Camaldoli Hermitage, a Benedictine monastery above Lucia, the road’s reopening and coming summer season have made a difference. Bookings are up an estimated 30% at the hermitage, which rent rooms and cottages (for two nights or more) to visitors who agree to its requirement of silence.
Big Sur business owners advise visitors to travel on weekdays for less traffic and the best hotel rates, and to get on the road as early as possible.
Since its opening in 1937, the highway has been vulnerable to landslides and shifting ground, operating on a longstanding cycle of landslide, closure, repair, reopening and then another landslide, or sometimes a fire. The U.S. Geological Survey has identified the Big Sur coastline as one of the most landslide-prone areas in the western United States. The 2023-2026 closure was the longest in the highway’s history.
Over time, road crews have used increasingly sophisticated strategies. In the most recent efforts, Caltrans said, it used drones to help survey the slopes and remotely operated bulldozers and excavators to reduce risks to workers.
During the closure, no traffic was allowed on 6.8-mile span from just north of Lucia until about a mile south of the Esalen Institute. Drivers detoured inland by way of U.S. 101.
Correspondents of CBS’ 60 Minutes pose for a portrait in 2023. From left to right, they are Sharyn Alfonsi, L. Jon Wertheim, Bill Whitaker, Lesley Stahl, Scott Pelley, Cecilia Vega, and Anderson Cooper. Former Executive Producer Bill Owens sits on the far right. Only Wertheim, Whitaker and Stahl remain at the program.
CBS Photo Archive/CBS via Getty Images/CBS
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When CBS fired Scott Pelley on Tuesday night, the new 60 Minutes executive producer, Nick Bilton, told Pelley it was for insubordination at a staff meeting the day before.
The veteran correspondent argues he was defending the DNA of 60 Minutes and the integrity of its journalism.
The battle royale over the network’s most prestigious and profitable news program is part of a broader fight over the direction of CBS News.
And given CBS’s acquisition by a billionaire family whose business interests have become intertwined with the political interests of President Trump, it reflects a larger war over control of the media in the current moment.
That father and son, Larry and David Ellison, bought CBS’ parent company, Paramount, last summer. In January, they became co-owners of TikTok’s U.S. operations. Now they’re seeking approval from Trump’s regulators to buy Warner Bros. Discovery, the parent company of CNN.
A glamorous show shorn, for now, of most its stars
CBS fired Cecilia Vega, a correspondent, and Tanya Simon, the executive producer, from 60 Minutes last week. They are shown in this photo at the 2026 White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner on April 25, 2026 in Washington, D.C.
Kristina Bumphrey/Variety via Getty Images/Variety
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Kristina Bumphrey/Variety via Getty Images/Variety
But the specifics of this individual episode matter — for 60 Minutes, CBS, its audience of millions, and even the news business itself.
The program has been the most glamorous post in broadcast news. The correspondents are the stars of the show. And now, there are just three of them.
Anderson Cooper left last month, concerned over the direction of the network’s coverage. Last week was a virtual bloodbath: correspondents Cecilia Vega and Sharyn Alfonsi were fired. So were a producer and two show executives — including Tanya Simon, a longtime staffer who had stepped up as executive producer when her predecessor resigned in protest before the Ellisons’ takeover.
With Pelley’s ouster, only correspondents Lesley Stahl, Bill Whitaker, and Jon Wertheim remain. Now they are considering whether to resign, according to two associates with knowledge.
Their brand-new boss, Bilton, was previously a tech reporter for The New York Times and an investigative reporter for Vanity Fair. He executive-produced a documentary for Netflix about a couple accused of laundering Bitcoin and has been a producer on several other films.
Notably, he has no experience in television news.
Neither does Bari Weiss, whom David Ellison installed as the network’s editor in chief last October. The Ellisons also bought her center-right views-and-news site, The Free Press.
She has maintained that the network of Walter Cronkite needs a makeover for the digital moment. She has also contended for years that CBS, along with the rest of mainstream media, is too reflexively anti-Trump, anti-Israel, and too woke.
A rejection of CBS News executives’ overtures
The new executive producer of 60 Minutes, Nick Bilton, has been a tech journalist and documentary filmmaker, but lacks experience in broadcast news.
Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images/Getty Images North America
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Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images/Getty Images North America
Bilton attempted to set a conciliatory tone at Monday’s meeting — his first with the show. Pelley, a formidable veteran correspondent and former CBS Evening News anchor, wasn’t having it.
Pelley called Bilton unwelcome and unqualified. And Pelley said that Weiss was attempting to “murder” the program.
In firing Pelley on Tuesday, Bilton said the journalist had hijacked the meeting and rejected overtures to work constructively through their differences. (NPR obtained a copy of the firing notice.) Bilton wrote that Pelley’s “antipathy to the future of the show came through loud and clear.”
In his own statement late Tuesday evening, shared with NPR, Pelley accused CBS’s new news leadership of killing 60 Minutes‘ DNA and pushing him “to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story” and “to include assertions that are unverified.”
The accusations, to which CBS has not yet responded, echo those made by Alfonsi and Vega, the two correspondents fired last week.
Earlier this year, Alfonsi publicly complained after Weiss held one of her stories at the last minute, and kept it frozen for weeks, demanding an on-camera interview with a Trump White House official that never played out. It ran, unchanged from the intended version, with additional statements from the administration tacked on to the end.
After being fired, Vega said in a statement obtained by NPR that her team had “experienced efforts to insert political bias into our stories.”
“Let’s call this what it is: censorship, both censorship and self-driven” Vega continued. “It is dangerous for the show and dangerous for democracy.”
Weiss previously rejected Alfonsi’s and Vega’s allegations. (CBS said Vega’s claims, for example, were “not based in reality” while expressing appreciation for her work.)
Weiss and Bilton say digital threat requires a 60 Minutes overhaul now
In a meeting this morning, Weiss said that Pelley chose his own path — that is, to be fired rather than to find a way to work through his concerns, according to attendees. The network and Weiss have not yet publicly addressed Pelley’s accusations of interference.
Bilton and Weiss say they respect the show’s traditions, its accomplishments and its legacy of enterprise reporting, extended interviews and visual storytelling. It rose in the ratings 9% over the past season under Simon.
The two news leaders say, however, 60 Minutes needs to be overhauled before it becomes increasingly irrelevant in the era of streamers and other sources of news, information and entertainment in the digital age.
Interviews with 12 current and former CBS News staffers, from producers to executives, suggest great reservations and suspicions remain about Weiss’ judgment and her ability to handle the prominent and even famous journalists on whom her division relies.
Weiss had initially sought to reinvent the CBS Evening News, dropping a two-anchor format that had sagged in the ratings. Cooper turned down Weiss’ overtures to anchor it and left the network altogether, concerned about her approach, according to associates. (They spoke on condition of anonymity because Cooper has not chosen to speak publicly on the matter.)
David Ellison became chairman and CEO of CBS’ parent company, Paramount, after buying it last year.
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Noam Galai/Getty Images for Paramount/Getty Images North America
The ratings have continued to sag under new anchor Tony Dokoupil. And some CBS journalists, including producers who have left the Evening News, have publicly accused Weiss of making editorial decisions driven by politics. She has rejected those claims.
The decision to take on overhauling two key shows — one listing, one highly profitable, both high profile — carries significant risks for Weiss and the network, even apart from other considerations.
But the Ellisons’ presence cannot be ignored.
When Shari Redstone was negotiating the sale of CBS’s parent company, Paramount, to the Ellisons’ Skydance Media last year, the network announced the end of Stephen Colbert’s late night show. He had been one of the president’s most biting and acerbic critics.
David Ellison also made a series of concessions directly to Trump’s chief broadcast regulator, Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr, gutting CBS’s diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and appointing a conservative ombudsman to field complaints of bias against its news reporting.
Carr and other regulators approved the Paramount deal last summer.
The accommodations echo those made by other media titans.
Amazon and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos remade the editorial pages of the Washington Post, which he owns, into a far more hospitable zone for Trump at the outset of his second term. So did Los Angeles Times owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, a noted medical device inventor. Amazon and Blue Origin have multi-billion dollar contracts with the federal government. Soon-Shiong’s medical research firm routinely has patent applications up for review with federal regulators. One was approved Tuesday.
The Ellisons are hoping to win approval from federal regulators next month for their purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery in a deal valued at more than $110 billion. It would include Warner Bros. Studio, HBO and CNN, among other properties.
As Weiss routs CBS News’ old guard, the question of what role she might play at CNN — and what changes that portends at CBS — hangs over journalists at the two networks. The fate of 60 Minutes serves as a high-stakes case study for both.
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