This past Thursday night, while unconfirmed reports spread regarding a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, pointing out the conflicting information and pointing viewers to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Although the network is hardly a impeccable news source, her words rang true to many. It stands as one of the organizations where you can find reality-based and largely dependable reporting – notably during breaking news situations such as the one unfolding in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain Position During a Business Battle
Yet CNN, now 45 years old, finds itself in a vulnerable state as two giant media empires vie for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the fate of CNN has become part of a high-stakes game of business acquisition, not as a question of what serves the information-seeking public.
“This represents another instance of the deep structural problems with roots in decades of regulatory actions,” said Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Penn.
The conjecture about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a larger point.
“It is often framed as a corporate drama with influential figures as the main characters, but there is scant discussion of the public interest,” Pickard explained.
The Additional Element: Donald Trump
This situation is complicated by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his main “fake news” foe.
Recall the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his team's disciplinary revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his sparring with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now asserts that the network requires new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will protect him from criticism and scrutiny. That is one reason why he appears to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
Trump has reason to like that company more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the pro-Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, owner of CBS News, also recently appointed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that venerable news network.
A Possibility of More Uncertainty
Significantly, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a standalone company. This might be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s hardly a safe harbor. That setup could pave the way for CNN for yet another acquisition. There is no finish line.
In the view of Timothy Wu, a lot of this is against the law, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance recently argued that anti-trust laws should disallow both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be bad for the country, and both should be contested by the government,” Wu argued.
The Bigger Issue and a Path Forward
Whatever happens regarding CNN, the underlying crisis remains.
“The present media landscape is a profoundly structure that undermines democracy, but we ought not succumb to the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard noted. Policy decisions – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this profit-obsessed monster, and new policy decisions can fix it.
Will that happen in an era where the head of the FCC refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Overhaul is very unlikely now, but that doesn’t mean it will not happen in the future.
Initiatives that support independent news organizations, aid local journalism, fund public media, and outlaw the concentration of media power in very few hands are not only possible – they are necessary for a robust democracy.
Regarding media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations such as CNN cannot be pieces in the latest merger game.
