This past Thursday night, while unconfirmed reports spread about a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, pointing out the conflicting information and guiding the public to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Even though it is by no means a flawless news source, her words resonated for numerous observers. It remains one of the outlets where there exists reality-based and mostly dependable reporting – notably during crises like the one developing close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious Situation During a Corporate Tug-of-War
However CNN, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a vulnerable state as two giant media corporations compete for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the future of CNN has turned into a high-risk game of mergers and acquisitions, instead of as a question of what serves the information-seeking public.
“Here is one more case of the profound systemic issues with roots in many years of regulatory actions,” said Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Penn.
The debate about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a more important point.
“It is often framed as a corporate drama with influential figures as the main characters, but there is hardly any discussion of the common good,” Pickard added.
A Further Element: The Former President
The CNN scenario is complicated by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his main “fake news” foe.
Recall the chants of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his administration’s punitive withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now says that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will protect him from negative coverage and examination. That is part of why he appears to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
He has grounds to favor that bidder more. For one thing, it is led 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 appointed the conservative Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that venerable news network.
An Outcome of More Turmoil
Significantly, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a independent unit. Such a move could be a relief to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a safe harbor. That arrangement could set up CNN for another sale. It never ends.
In the view of Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that competition laws should disallow both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be detrimental to the country, and both should be opposed by the government,” Wu argued.
The Core Problem and a Potential Solution
No matter the outcome regarding CNN, the bigger problem endures.
“Our current system is a profoundly anti-democratic system, but we ought not succumb to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard said. Government actions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this overly commercial monster, and revised policy decisions can address it.
Will that happen in an era where the top communications regulator refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Change is a distant prospect now, but that should not imply it will not happen in the future.
Initiatives that support independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, fund public media, and prevent the accumulation of media power in a handful of hands are not only possible – they are essential for a functioning democracy.
In the world of media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations such as CNN cannot be pieces in the newest corporate chess match.
