As Breitbart News reported, Paramount reached a deal with 12 state attorneys-general Monday that surmounted a major hurdle to closing its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery which will now go ahead.

This clears the way for a media behemoth that will straddle both CBS News and CNN, in addition to Hollywood studios Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros., streaming services HBO Max and Paramount+.

Not everyone is enthused at the prospect and bottom lips are trembling, as the NY Post reports.

"People are very nervous," one CNN staffer told the outlet. "It's dark. It's like when you do hurricane coverage. You see the storm spinning off the coast of Haiti and moving towards Florida and you're just waiting and you're like, 'Oh, s–t'."

"Bloodbath coming, including at CNN," a TV executive confided. "That's the next big step — slashing and burning," while others also drew death-by-takeover comparisons.

 The outbreak of fear and loathing at CNN goes back as far as June this year when, as Breitbart News reported, many CNN employees were so worried over the evolving merger they turned their boss's office into a makeshift "psychiatrist's couch," according to a report.

CNN staffers were worried over Paramount boss David Ellison's connections to Trump — as well as that of Ellison's father, Larry, who is a huge Trump donor.

The fearful employees were apparently fretting CNN will be forced to make a turn to the right by virtue of association if Ellison took control, and voiced their worries to CNN executive Amy Entelis.

Now their worst nightmares have been realised.

Paramount anticipates at least $6 billion in cost savings, which would translate to several thousand jobs lost in the months ahead.

Cable News Network, Inc. (CNN) was founded on June 1, 1980, by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel and headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.