Late Thursday, while unconfirmed reports spread concerning an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, pointing out the conflicting information and pointing viewers to her network’s 9pm newscast.
Even though the network is hardly a perfect news source, her statement seemed accurate to many. It is one of the broadcasters where you can find fact-based and largely dependable reporting – especially during fast-moving events like the one developing close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious State Amid a High-Stakes Struggle
However the news network, now 45 years old, finds itself in a uncertain position as two giant media empires compete for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the destiny of CNN has been drawn into a major game of corporate ownership, rather than as a question of what serves the information-seeking public.
“Here is one more case of the profound systemic issues with roots in decades of regulatory actions,” stated Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
The conjecture about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a more important point.
“It gets presented as a business story with influential figures as the central actors, but there is hardly any discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard added.
A Further Element: Donald Trump
The network's predicament is made more complex by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his main “fake news” antagonist.
Recall the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his administration's retaliatory revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now asserts that CNN needs new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will shield him from negative coverage and examination. That is part of why he seems to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
There is a basis to prefer 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 right-leaning Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that venerable news network.
A Future of Continued Turmoil
Notably, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a standalone company. That would be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a safe harbor. That structure could position CNN for yet another acquisition. It never ends.
According to Timothy Wu, a lot of this is against the law, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that competition laws should disallow both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be bad for the country, and both should be challenged by the government,” Wu argued.
The Fundamental Challenge and a Path Forward
Whatever happens in this situation, the bigger problem persists.
“Our current system is a very anti-democratic system, but we must resist a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard noted. Regulatory choices – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this hyper-commercialized monster, and new policy decisions can fix it.
Will that happen in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Reform is highly improbable now, but that is not to say it will be impossible forever.
Measures that bolster independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, subsidize public media, and prevent the consolidation of media power in a handful of hands are within reach – they are essential for a robust democracy.
In the world of media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations like CNN shouldn’t be tools in the newest merger game.
