This past Thursday night, amid swirling speculation concerning a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, highlighting the uncertainty and pointing viewers to her channel's 9pm newscast.
While the network is hardly a perfect news source, her statement rang true for a lot of people. It is one of the broadcasters where you can find grounded and mostly dependable reporting – particularly during crises like the one unfolding in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious Position During a Corporate Tug-of-War
Yet CNN, now middle-aged, finds itself in a uncertain situation as two huge media empires battle over ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the future of CNN has been drawn into a high-risk game of mergers and acquisitions, not as a question of what helps the information-seeking public.
“This is yet another example of the deep structural problems with roots in many years of regulatory actions,” said Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
The conjecture about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a more important point.
“It is often framed as a business story with powerful individuals as the protagonists, but there is scant discussion of the common good,” Pickard explained.
A Further Factor: The Former President
This situation is complicated by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his main “fake news” antagonist.
Recall the cries of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his team's disciplinary withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now asserts that the network requires new ownership. Many see this as a desire for ownership that will shield him from criticism and scrutiny. That is one reason why he appears to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
Trump has reason to prefer that company more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the ally of Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, parent of CBS News, also recently appointed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that venerable news network.
An Outcome of Further Instability
Significantly, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a standalone company. This might be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s hardly a guarantee of stability. That structure could pave the way for CNN for a future sale. It never ends.
According to Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance stated that anti-trust laws should prohibit both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be bad for the country, and both should be contested by the government,” Wu argued.
The Core Problem and a Potential Solution
Regardless of the resolution with this particular battle, the bigger problem remains.
“The present media landscape is a highly structure that undermines democracy, but we must resist the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard noted. Regulatory choices – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this overly commercial monster, and different policy decisions can fix it.
Is this likely in an era where the head of the FCC won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Change is very unlikely now, but that is not to say it will not happen in the future.
Policies that bolster independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, fund public media, and outlaw the concentration of media power in very few hands are achievable – they are vital for a robust democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations such as CNN cannot be pawns in the newest corporate chess match.
