This past Thursday night, while unconfirmed reports spread regarding a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, noting the confusion and guiding the public to her network’s 9pm newscast.
While the network is hardly a impeccable news source, her words seemed accurate for a lot of people. It is one of the broadcasters where you can find grounded and generally dependable reporting – especially during crises like the one developing near a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable State During a Business Battle
But CNN, now 45 years old, finds itself in a vulnerable position as two huge media empires vie for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the destiny of CNN has turned into a major game of mergers and acquisitions, instead of as a question of what benefits the news-consuming public.
“Here is one more case of the deep structural problems with origins in decades of regulatory actions,” noted Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
The conjecture about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a more important point.
“It is often framed as a business story with key players as the protagonists, but there is scant discussion of the public interest,” Pickard said.
The Additional Factor: The Former President
The network's predicament is further muddied by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his main “fake news” antagonist.
Think back to the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his team's disciplinary withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now says that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will insulate him from negative coverage and examination. That is a factor in why he appears to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
Trump has reason to like that suitor more. For one thing, it is run by David Ellison, son of the pro-Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, owner of CBS News, also recently placed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that storied news network.
A Possibility of Further Instability
Significantly, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a independent unit. This might be a relief to many at the network, but it’s far from a guarantee of stability. That setup could position CNN for another sale. The cycle continues.
If you ask Timothy Wu, a lot of this is illegal, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that anti-trust laws should prohibit both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be detrimental to the country, and both should be challenged by anti-trust authorities,” Wu argued.
The Core Problem and a Way Ahead
Regardless of the resolution regarding CNN, the larger issue remains.
“The present media landscape is a profoundly anti-democratic system, but we must resist learned helplessness,” Pickard noted. Government actions – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this overly commercial monster, and different policy decisions can fix it.
Is this likely in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Change is a distant prospect now, but that should not imply it will never happen.
Policies that bolster independent news organizations, aid local journalism, finance public media, and outlaw the consolidation of media power in very few hands are within reach – they are vital for a functioning democracy.
Regarding media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations including CNN must not be tools in the latest corporate chess match.
