On Thursday evening, amid swirling speculation regarding a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, noting the confusion and pointing viewers to her network’s 9pm newscast.
Although the network is hardly a impeccable news source, her words rang true for numerous observers. It stands as one of the outlets where one can locate fact-based and generally reliable reporting – especially during crises like the one taking place in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious State Amid a Corporate Battle
However CNN, now 45 years old, finds itself in a vulnerable state as two massive media corporations vie for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the future of CNN has become part of a high-risk game of business acquisition, instead of as a question of what serves the information-seeking public.
“This represents another instance of the deep structural problems with roots in decades of governmental choices,” said Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Penn.
The speculation about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a more important point.
“It gets presented as a corporate drama with influential figures as the central actors, but there is very little discussion of the common good,” Pickard added.
The Complicating Element: Donald Trump
The network's predicament is made more complex by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his primary “fake news” adversary.
Think back to the chants of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his administration's retaliatory suspension of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now asserts that CNN needs new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will protect him from criticism and scrutiny. That is part of why he appears to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
Trump has reason to prefer that company more. For one thing, it is run by David Ellison, son of the pro-Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, parent 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
Notably, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a separate entity. That would be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s far from a secure position. That arrangement could set up CNN for a future sale. The cycle continues.
In the view of Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is illegal, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance recently argued that anti-trust laws should block both deals.
“Either merger would be detrimental to the country, and both should be contested by regulators,” Wu argued.
The Core Challenge and a Path Forward
No matter the outcome in this situation, the underlying crisis endures.
“What we have now is a highly anti-democratic system, but we must resist learned helplessness,” Pickard emphasized. Policy decisions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this profit-obsessed monster, and different policy decisions can fix it.
Can reform occur in an era where the head of the FCC refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Overhaul is a distant prospect now, but that is not to say it will be impossible forever.
Measures that bolster independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, subsidize public media, and outlaw the concentration of media power in very few hands are not only possible – they are essential for a functioning democracy.
In the world of media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations such as CNN must not be tools in the newest merger game.
