Late Thursday, as rumors swirled regarding a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, noting the confusion and directing people to her network’s 9pm newscast.
While the network is hardly a impeccable news source, her words resonated for a lot of people. It remains one of the broadcasters where there exists fact-based and largely trustworthy reporting – notably during breaking news situations such as the one unfolding near a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable Situation Amid a Business Tug-of-War
But CNN, now middle-aged, finds itself in a precarious position as two huge media empires compete for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the destiny of CNN has become part of a major game of business acquisition, rather than as a question of what helps the news-consuming public.
“This represents another instance of the deep structural problems with roots in decades of governmental choices,” said Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Penn.
The debate about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a larger point.
“It gets presented as a business story with powerful individuals as the protagonists, but there is hardly any discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard said.
The Complicating Element: Political Influence
The network's predicament is made more complex by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his primary “fake news” antagonist.
Think back to the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his team's disciplinary withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now claims that the network requires new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will shield him from journalistic oversight. That is one reason why he seems to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
Trump has reason to like that suitor more. For one thing, it is run by David Ellison, son of the pro-Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, owner of CBS News, also recently installed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that storied news network.
An Outcome of Continued Uncertainty
Notably, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a standalone company. Such a move could be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a guarantee of stability. That setup could position CNN for a future sale. There is no finish line.
According to Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that anti-trust laws should disallow both deals.
“Either merger would be detrimental to the country, and both should be contested by regulators,” Wu recently wrote.
The Core Challenge and a Potential Solution
Regardless of the resolution regarding CNN, the bigger problem persists.
“Our current system is a highly structure that undermines democracy, but we must resist a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard said. Regulatory choices – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this overly commercial monster, and different policy decisions can fix it.
Is this likely in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair will not confirm that the agency is independent? Reform is very unlikely now, but that should not imply it will never happen.
Policies that support independent news organizations, aid local journalism, fund public media, and prevent the concentration of media power in too few hands are achievable – they are necessary for a robust democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations including CNN shouldn’t be pawns in the latest corporate chess match.
