This past Thursday night, as rumors swirled about the Brown University gunman, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, noting the confusion and pointing viewers to her channel's 9pm newscast.
While CNN is certainly not a impeccable news source, her words resonated for a lot of people. It stands as one of the outlets where there exists fact-based and mostly trustworthy reporting – particularly during fast-moving events like the one unfolding in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable Situation Amid a Corporate Struggle
However the news network, now middle-aged, finds itself in a precarious state as two giant media conglomerates compete for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the future of CNN has been drawn into a major game of business acquisition, instead of as a question of what serves the information-seeking public.
“Here is one more case of the deep structural problems with origins in many years of regulatory actions,” said Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the Penn.
The conjecture about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a more important point.
“It is often framed as a business story with influential figures as the protagonists, but there is scant discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard explained.
The Additional Factor: Donald Trump
The CNN scenario is complicated by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his primary “fake news” foe.
Remember the chants of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his team's disciplinary suspension of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his sparring with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now claims that the network requires new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will shield him from negative coverage and examination. That is part of why he appears to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
He has grounds to prefer that company more. For one thing, it is led by David Ellison, son of the Trump-friendly Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, parent of CBS News, also recently installed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that historic news network.
A Future of More Instability
Notably, if Netflix is successful, 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 hardly a secure position. That structure could position CNN for a future sale. The cycle continues.
In the view of Timothy Wu, a lot of this is illegal, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance recently argued that anti-trust laws should prohibit both deals.
“Either merger would be bad for the country, and both should be challenged by anti-trust authorities,” Wu recently wrote.
The Core Issue and a Potential Solution
No matter the outcome in this situation, the underlying crisis persists.
“The present media landscape is a highly anti-democratic system, but we ought not succumb to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard emphasized. Regulatory choices – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this profit-obsessed monster, and new policy decisions can tackle it.
Will that happen in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Reform is a distant prospect now, but that doesn’t mean it will never happen.
Policies that strengthen independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, finance public media, and prevent the concentration of media power in a handful of hands are achievable – they are essential for a healthy democracy.
Regarding media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations including CNN cannot be tools in the most recent acquisition battle.
