This past Thursday night, as rumors swirled about a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, noting the confusion and pointing viewers to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Even though it is by no means a impeccable news source, her words seemed accurate to many. It remains one of the organizations where you can find grounded and generally reliable reporting – notably during fast-moving events such as the one taking place in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable Situation Amid a Corporate Tug-of-War
Yet CNN, now 45 years old, finds itself in a vulnerable situation as two huge 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 mergers and acquisitions, not as a question of what benefits the information-seeking public.
“Here is one more case of the profound systemic issues with roots in decades of policy decisions,” stated Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
The speculation 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 business story with influential figures as the protagonists, but there is very little discussion of the common good,” Pickard said.
The Additional Element: Donald Trump
This situation is further muddied by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his main “fake news” adversary.
Remember the cries of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his administration’s punitive withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his sparring 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 journalistic oversight. That is a factor in why he seems to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
Trump has reason to favor that company more. For one thing, it is run by David Ellison, son of the ally of Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, owner of CBS News, also recently appointed the conservative Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that historic news network.
A Possibility of Further Turmoil
Significantly, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a standalone company. Such a move could be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s far from a guarantee of stability. That arrangement could position CNN for yet another acquisition. It never ends.
If you ask Timothy Wu, a lot of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that competition laws should block both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be harmful to the country, and both should be challenged by regulators,” Wu argued.
The Fundamental Problem 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 shouldn’t give in to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard emphasized. Regulatory choices – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this profit-obsessed monster, and different policy decisions can fix it.
Will that happen in an era where the top communications regulator won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Change is highly improbable now, but that should not imply it will never happen.
Measures that bolster independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, subsidize public media, and outlaw the consolidation of media power in a handful of hands are not only possible – they are essential for a robust democracy.
Regarding media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations like CNN cannot be pawns in the most recent corporate chess match.
